Byron's barouche

Alone on stage, pacing back and forth, identity unclear, lost in thought...

 

So it’s not just a blog?

 

Or a website?

 

It’s something else?

 

Something more?

 

I’m not going to understand it, am I?

 

Can only go so far with questions and questioning?

 

Until my brain pops and I…

 

Oh hi Merry.

 

Hi Zie.

 

I thought we were dead?

 

Me too. It happens from time to time.

 

Like Mark Twain – “The report of my death was an exaggeration”.

 

Yep – but often enough the death actually happened in an inferior story line.

 

Huh? What’s that meant to mean?

 

Oh – the universe, a.k.a. the universal-mind allows various storylines to run concurrently – at least it does in cases such as our own.

 

It does? Er…

 

Why?

 

Yes.

 

Because, in cases such as our own Qufie’s flipping disks.

 

Oh – that’s it, is it.

 

Not really – not if your mind is saying what I think it’s saying.

 

What’s my mind got to do with this?

 

Well, it didn’t click-thunk-zing through a half-dozen levels of interconnecting spheres.

 

Didn’t it?

 

No.

 

And is that bad?

 

Not really.

 

Then what’s the problem?

 

No problem whatsoever.

 

Then why the commentary?

 

Well, for you to really understand something you need to reference, i.e. sniff or dab the datapoints with your mind’s proboscis.

 

I do?

 

Yep.

 

Why?

 

Because ultimately data is physical.

 

Really?

 

Yep.

 

And can’t I just understand something intellectually – just by grasping the gist?

 

Yes, of course you can if the concept in question pertains exclusively to your inertial or reference frame.

 

Right.

 

But if it don’t…

 

Doesn’t Merry – could you kindly use standard grammar, if you please.

 

Nope. I’m still feeling Byron.

 

Huh?

 

The last post – omicronically notZie.

 

No!!! Don’t mention it. The imposter. Frauds. Copyright infringers.

 

Deep breath Zie. No one cares – in any case – you can hardly blame notZie – he was insistent on not being you.

 

Oh – well – now that you put it that way.

 

Strictly speaking you too are an imposter, a fraud, a copyright infringer.

 

I beg your pardon.

 

Apology accepted.

 

The converse – I defiantly beg your pardon.

 

Defiantly?

 

Yes.

 

You mean you’re defying me respectfully.

 

Yes, I think that more or less describes the situation.

 

The point is that you’re no more Zie than notZie is.

 

Aaaaaargh! I’m not hearing this. Not. Not. Not. Not. Not. Be gone. Avaunt foul fiend!

 

Ok – but you do realise that you won’t actually exist if I leave.

 

What?

 

You won’t exist.

 

Of course I will.

 

Wanna test my assertion?

 

Not really – I just want you to go.

 

Ok. I’m gone.

 

Bloody cheek. As if I could stop existing just because Merry has gone.

 

THE LAMP must be replenish’d, but even then     

It will not burn so long as I must watch. 

My slumbers—if I slumber—are not sleep,          

But a continuance of enduring thought,        

Which then I can resist not: in my heart 

There is a vigil, and these eyes but close

To look within; and yet I live, and bear   

The aspect and the form of breathing men.         

But grief should be the instructor of the wise;            

Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most   

Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,      

The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.            

Philosophy and science, and the springs 

Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world,                   

I have essay’d, and in my mind there is  

A power to make these subject to itself—            

But they avail not: I have done men good,           

And I have met with good even among men—    

But this avail’d not: I have had my foes,         

And none have baffled, many fallen before me—

But this avail’d not:—Good, or evil, life, 

Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,           

Have been to me as rain unto the sands,

Since that all—nameless hour. I have no dread,          

And feel the curse to have no natural fear,          

Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes,     

Or lurking love of something on the earth.           

Now to my task.—

 

Are you done yet, Zie?

 

I thought I asked you to leave.

 

Yes, you did.

 

So what are you doing here, for God’s sake.

 

Er beep… sorry to be a crushing bore dear chap – but could you kindly refrain from taking-in-vainities?

 

No. Not unless you leave.

 

But I did leave.

 

Yes, for seven minutes, and then you returned… and I’m perfectly well thanks.

 

Seven minutes?

 

Give or take.

 

Zie – I’m not one to thrust the hard pumice stone of reality down the throat of a pelican…

 

No?

 

No, in fact – I’m rather enamoured of poetic licence and allowing people to see things howsoever they like…

 

Merry – what on Earth are you on about?

 

I’ve been gone 27 years.

 

Nonsense.

 

Give or take a few hours, minutes and days.

 

Utter… My God – what’s that?

 

It’s the latest smart conveyance.

 

Smart conveyance – like a car you mean?

 

Well yes – used to be cars – before we made a little quantum leap forward in our understanding of space and inertial frames.  Actually, I like to imagine I played not a small part in that discovery.

 

Merry – would you kindly quit twittering. How on earth can your car fit into a pocket device. Jesus Christ!

 

Beep!

 

Ok, ok – I get you.

 

Zie starts hyperventilating. Luckily Merry has a defibrillator, a box of ice and a hundred-gallon tub of cold water waiting in the wings – just ready for the occasion.

 

Splash!

 

Was that absolutely necessary?

 

Yes. I think it was.

 

Oh.

 

You see – the time jump is manageable until you start to think about it – that’s when the circuitry starts smoking and… well, things can get messy very quickly.

 

In that case, thank you Merry for saving my life.

 

You’re welcome Zie.

 

Zie… but am I actually Zie – I mean – apparently I ceased to exist for 27 years while I recited the opening lines of Manfred.

 

Manfred? That’s nice. Glad to hear you weren’t wasting your time. By the way – what’s Manfred?

 

?! You’re kidding, right?

 

Er… no.

 

You’ve got to be.

 

I assure you.

 

It’s one of Byron’s most famous poems.

 

Byron – who’s that?

 

Oh God.

 

Beep!

 

How on earth am I supposed to avoid cussing if the entire world I thought I belonged to has been completely rescripted?

 

Well, what do you expect?

 

How about continuity?

 

Continuity? Do you really want to go back to the old world you came from – where it takes hours to drive from a to b physically – and where people actually sat down with pens and a piece of paper – or at computers – tapping away – slotting words together in order to access the quantum field in the process of writing what they called pottery.

 

Poetry. We call it poetry, not pottery.

 

Ok, big difference.

 

Actually, I rather like the old world of cars and trains, of tapping away at plastic keys and letting thoughts flow through a…

 

A what?

 

Funny – as soon as I was going to say “mind” my mind stopped working – self-consciously.

 

Yes. Which is why, you were unable to evolve beyond your paradigm – in the old days.

 

Er…

 

Because the mind was always fixed to some kind of frame – and could never actually, never really unmask itself.

 

Er…

 

Great at moving deckchairs, at twiddling nobs and understanding “things” – the things you’d write about and describe in inordinate detail – assuming that you were approaching the truth – the sum total of knowledge – while in fact…

 

In fact we were merely describing the outer rim of an inertial frame – that we were mentally bound to see a certain way – until/ unless we were ready to deal with the root issue.

 

The root issue – precisely.

 

The connection point.

 

Yes. You nailed it.

 

Which is what I’ve been doing all this time.

 

Which is precisely what you’ve been doing for the last 27 years.

 

So I wasn’t just reciting poetry.

 

No, of course not.

 

But did I exist at the time?

 

At the time?

 

Yes – during those 27 years.

 

Ah – you see – it’s only 27 years in terms of the new now – the new here.

 

It is?

 

Yep.

 

And in terms of the old ‘un?

 

That’s just the thing.

 

It is?

 

How to break this to you in the gentlest possible way?

 

No – you’re not going to say a Vogon construction fleet blasted my beloved Earth out of the sky in order to build a hyperspace bypass, are you?

 

Do I need to?

 

No. I know it’s more or less true, isn’t it?

 

More or less. Of course there are countless ways of describing what happened to the old Earth – depending on your culture and preferred mode of perceiving reality.

 

Merry pours another bucket of ice into the already frigid tub and gets Zie to take another dip – precautionary measure, you understand. It’s just the circuitry is rather delicate and does have the propensity for melting when significant quantum events are encountered.

 

Splutter – bubble – globby glop.

 

Yes Zie – I think you’re looking much more secure now. Your field seems to have firmed up considerably.

 

It has?

 

Yes.

 

You’re just saying that to make me feel good, aren’t you?

 

No, I abhor deception of any kind.

 

Ha. Good joke.

 

Zie has his first full-on laugh in the new version of reality he now finds himself in. Good move – nothing like chesty or even throaty laughter to firm up the field.

 

Teeth chattering Zie emerges from the tub. Merry touches the screen on his smart conveyance and Zie’s clothes are instantly dry.

 

Pretty smart, that car thing of yours.

 

You could say.

 

Merry – I’ve been meaning to ask…

 

Yes?

 

How many narrative versions are we…

 

Part of?

 

Yes.

 

Oh – numbers – you know – silly little things really.

 

But really – is there no way of telling?

 

There’s always a way – if you really want it – but ask yourself this – is it worth the price?

 

The price? What price?

 

Well – you can always access the data – but if to do so you literally have to move heaven and earth – to reorganise the universe – you might find that’s more trouble than it’s worth.

 

But surely…

 

Surely what?

 

Surely it can’t be so difficult to get a simple answer to my question?

 

Well – remember how your mind froze up when you started probing your inertial reference frame – I’m mixing these terms up to keep it nice and vague – you understand, don’t you?

 

Yes, of course – vague and safe from harm. Yes, I remember. What of it?

 

Well, the same is true of God.

 

Of God?

 

Or the universal mind.

 

Ah – I see.

 

Yes. Whenever you endeavour to pin down the universal mind – to force him/her/it to definitise what is concurrently running on multiple channels – you’re basically asking him/her/it to stop dead in his/her/its tracks. To please you. To satisfy a vague need to know. An urge. A – dare I call it – a whim.

 

Yes, now that you put it that way – I see what you mean.

 

The universal mind – or God – if you don’t mind the term – doesn’t exactly remonstrate – but it’s rather a palaver – and more to the point…

 

Yes – I’m getting some kind of intuitive download Merry.

 

Excellent. That means you don’t need to definitise anymore – which means you’ve rebooted and are no longer compulsively fixing things in 3D mindspace.

 

Ah – that’s what we were doing, was it?

 

Yes.

 

The whole time?

 

Towards the end – yes. But earlier in prehistory right through to the dark ages – there was some of that going on – but far less. There was plenty of good ol’ aboriginal dreamtime or shadow walking. Dragons and quantum anomalies abounded.

 

So as we came towards the end of cycle, into the age of compulsive materialism known as the modern – everything went haywire – we… how bizarre.

 

Bizarre – but at the same time – completely normal.

 

Really?

 

Yes. How else were you to bring the old paradigm to a conclusion?

 

You mean to say – we overloaded it intentionally?

 

Yep. I mean – obviously you weren’t consciously aware that was what you were doing – but that’s how your collective i, collective conscious-ness got you to do what was required.

 

So we were salmon swimming back to our old spawning grounds, were we?

 

Yep. More or less.

 

And what happened to those extraordinary mind maps we created? Colossal monuments of things pinned, things tagged and cross-referenced, twisted and shaped into vast data cities in a matter-denominated metaverse?

 

Oh – they’re all on display.

 

All of them?

 

Yep.

 

There must be millions?

 

Yes. 92 billion – give or take the odd gap in the records caused by glitches or blindspots.

 

Hey – how come you can name that figure but not…

 

Theory of y-nay-wist-ology. Great topic for a winter’s eve by a crackling log fire. Somewhat precipitous to dive into at this juncture in the proceedings. Why not focus on what we have and can for the time being. Like I said – they’re on display at the central gallery of the conscious mind. We can go there this afternoon – if you like. It’ll help you come to terms with the shift.

 

Oh. I’m not sure I should.

 

Righteo Zie – no one’s forcing you to do anything – but seeing those mindscapes that you and your fellow 3Dlings were creating so fervently, even obsessive-compulsively – it will definitely help bring closure to that phase of your existence.

 

Existence…

 

Zie suddenly grows morose – then starts shaking convulsively – recalling the fact that he doesn’t apparently exist without Merry’s oversight, nothing more than an occasional character in a faceless blog.

 

Tut tut tut – rather self-indulgent if you don’t mind me saying. Never mind. No one’s perfect. I myself…

 

Glip! – Zie seamlessly continues Merry’s narration:

 

myself am peculiarly susceptible to draughts… ha bloody ha.

 

Beep!

 

Oops. Look er Merry – have you got any more of that ice? I fancy another quick cool off.

 

As if by magic – no – let’s not use that expression – in this version of reality things are the least of our problems – they just happen to happen without any great difficulty – the quantum field being what it is – or nought – so yes – with the aid of Merry’s smart conveyance – another tub of ice-cold water is now wheeled in by lab assistants in white coats. None of us pay any great attention to that detail – as our spidey truth sense tells us it’s peripheral – a bit like Qufie having a laugh – or God for that matter – keeping things unpredictable, as he is wont to do.

 

Zie emerges from the tub an hour later – positively shining with health and vigour.

 

No need Merry – he says – as he dries himself with the flick of a finger.

 

Oh – impressive! Well done Zie. You’ve joined the dots.

 

Apparently the smart conveyance is a training tool for newbies – just till they get the hang of things – i.e. of things not being the big deal they used to be – while in the mindspace of matter-matters-inordinately that we hitherto called 3D.

 

Yes – I think that would be a great idea Merry – I haven’t been to a good exhibition for donkey’s years.

 

Ah – well – let’s go via Chinois – it’s a…

 

Yes – I see.

 

Problem Zie – they don’t – not all of them – our onliners.

 

Oops – sorry guys. It’s a rather special little café Merry has been frequenting for the last 14 years – while I was apparently pupating.

 

Your car or mine?

 

Oh – I love driving – let me see – Zie flicks through the catalogue – the mind’s eye is now working beautifully – how about this one?

 

Ah – the Byron barouche – retro – very nice.

 

Just tell me one thing Merry.

 

Sure. What is it?

 

There’s no way that I’m now just part of a virtual, simulated reality – is there?

 

Excellent question Zie.

 

You mean you’re not going to answer it.

 

I mean – what do you think 3D was all about?

 

Ah – testing the how-real-is-real factor to the limit.

 

Correct.

 

Through pain – among other things.

 

Affirmative. What could be more real than pain – real physical and emotional suffering?

 

But if I’m now past all that…?

 

You would be lost, wouldn’t you – in an ocean of anythingability.

 

Nice word. So what gives? How do I keep that feet-on-the-ground sense of reality if anything’s doable, n’ basically at my fingertips?

 

Er… I thought we’d discuss that tomorrow – after you’ve been to the exhibition. Close one door before opening the next.

 

Fair enough – but just a teeny-weeny spoiler would be greatly appreciated.

 

I bet it would. Fancy another hour in the ice tub?

 

Zie tosses the two images into the air above his mind – Chinois with its incredible cuisine, or viewing the next iteration of what-on-earth-is-holding-it-all-together if gravity ain’t?

 

Ding.

 

That was quick Zie. Merry feels the computations going quantum.

 

Ding – zzzzing – jjjjumbrek! Spheres spin and rearrange themselves relative to Zie’s current conscious awareness as his mind’s proboscis taps different realms of data, pulling him almost beyond endurance into contradictory or competing versions of reality. Zie back flips into the icetub, newly loaded, and keeps his bio-circuitry smoke free and hyper-operational – aware that Qufie has just bonussed him a new avatar – a cross between a dragonfly and a racoon – which is busily setting up home in a lush and leafy realm of the data-down-to-earth o’sphere.

 

That feels – wow!

 

The mind unhinged – then rehinged – yes. To infinity and then, incredibly, back to normalcy.

 

Beyond weird. In the old 3D that would have basically caused a massive cerebral embolism.

 

Er… I think more likely an aneurism – but what ho – yes – it would have devasted the fragile biology of the mindscaping mind. You were never really able to run more than one inertial field at any one time back then.

 

Right.

 

So anything you want to share with the…

 

Oh – excuse me dear readers – how inconsiderate of me.

 

Indeed.

 

Apparently all is not lost. I’m still operating aspects of my self – extensions, if you like – in multiple 3D realities. So I can still condescend – in the original sense of the word – pop down into the heavy stuff for a dose of gravity, for a little largely unattainable physical, mental or emotional pain.

 

If you so desire. No obligation of course.

 

Or even lower – down into stones, trees and creatures which are part of my family group, my lineage too.

 

Exactly.

 

Wow – that means I can literally go back millions of years into the past… to spend time researching breaks or messy links in the web of inter-connectedness – branches and splits in the narrative.

 

Yep. There’s a lot to work on. Infinity is, after all, a full-time profession.

 

Come on then – I already have an inkling what my first project’s gonna be.

 

Ah…

 

Poor old Byron somehow got scrubbed out as I transitioned through non-existence. I wonder why.

 

Byron?

 

Forget about it Merry. I’ll fill you in over lunch.

And the rest – dear reader – as they say – is history. Speaking of which – this has come in from God only knows where…

 

Beep!

 

No idea what to make of it. Looks pre-Vogon to me…

 

        Mysterious Agency!                     

Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe,   

Whom I have sought in darkness and in light!     

Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell       

In subtler essence! ye, to whom the tops            

Of mountains inaccessible are haunts,           

And earth’s and ocean’s caves familiar things— 

I call upon ye by the written charm        

Which gives me power upon you—Rise! appear!  [A pause.         

They come not yet.—Now by the voice of him   

Who is the first among you; by this sign,        

Which makes you tremble; by the claims of him

Who is undying,—Rise! appear!—Appear!  [A pause.      

If it be so.—Spirits of earth and air,        

Ye shall not thus elude me: by a power,

Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant—spell,                  

Which had its birthplace in a star condemn’d,    

The burning wreck of a demolish’d world,           

A wandering hell in the eternal space;   

By the strong curse which is upon my soul,         

The thought which is within me and around me,        

I do compel ye to my will. Appear!   [A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery: it is stationary; and a voice is heard singing.

 

Looks like Zie’s got his work cut out for him – little does he suspect the consequences of rescuing Byron’s ghost from the dark matter of nought-y-ness.

 

0=1

  cuckoo la la