losing the plot with william blake

Nothing?

 

I’m sleeping.

 

What?

 

Sleeping, can’t you see?

 

Fade out

 

 

 

You just sat there. You were holding something in your left hand.

 

My phone.

 

Right. You were holding your phone and then you just

 

Zonked out.

 

Oh.

 

Terribly sorry.

 

But...

 

What?

 

We have a full transmission.

 

You do?

 

Yes.

 

Cool. How did that happen?

 

Apparently you’re operating in other

 

Other what?

 

There doesn’t seem to be an English language word.

 

Oh. Russian?

 

No, Russian neither.

 

So call me when you decide what you’re trying to say.

 

Cuts out

 

 

 

You think it’s ok to just cut out like that?

 

Er…

 

How are we going to make sense of all this?

 

Er…

 

When you keep skipping off into the void.

 

Er…

 

And saying “Er” like you’ve got nothing better to utter.

 

Er…

 

I give up.

 

Cut₁

 

 

 

Three years later

 

A lot of water has passed under the bridge, M.

 

Uh huh.

 

Apparently the whole of reality is time stamped.

 

Yep.

 

So “nothing happenin” is not, in fact, nothing.

 

Yep.

 

It marks a point in time, or in a thought process.

 

Yep.

 

In fact, paradoxically, “nothin happening” could be a great deal more than something – literally anything else happening.

 

Could it?

 

Yep.

 

For example?

 

For example – imagine a society where people are just going through the motions – living by rote – talking for the sake of talking – doing stuff just to get by, with no deeper sense of truth or wonder or beauty.

 

Ok.

 

In such a society – people could be completely inured to all that is meaningful – they’re spiritually disconnected – so silence could well be the most powerful statement – coz whatever else you say or do is going to be absorbed by the slime of burgerland.

 

Maybe.

 

But tell me, M…

 

Yes.

 

How did we get the transcript for a full show if you fell asleep.

 

No idea.

 

Oh.

 

I could speculate.

 

Could you?

 

But what’s the point?

 

Oh. I guess you’re right.

 

 

 

Cut

 

 

Temporal dislocation – apparently, we’re now back at “Cut₁” but the next entry is not “Three years later”.

 

No?

 

No, apparently – cut – there’s nothing “apparently” about it at all – it’s a cold hard fact…

 

What?

 

 

Three days later…

 

Oh! I see what you mean.

 

 

Three days, M – three days have passed since you last closed the thread.

 

Three days? You’re lucky it wasn’t three years Zlata.

 

Three years? I can’t imagine why you’re showing so little regard for our long suffering subscribers.

 

Pshaw! Long suffering subscribers?! Give me a break.

 

I have, M. 3 whole days – and frankly I don’t know why I bother when all I get from you is disrespect and sass.

 

Oh.

 

Oh. Somehow I doubt you’re able to feel repentant. You seem to have gone off into the quantum soup of time-be-damned – a relativistic void from which few, if any return.

 

Yes. It is rather problematic, Zlata – which is why, as you know, most people know intuitively to leave well enough alone, to avoid the abyss.

 

Yes.

 

Coz we lose all traction when we slip out of linear time.

 

Indeed.

 

We are swallowed, easily, into the belly of infinity, and how, how on Earth do you return to some kind of normalcy?

 

How indeed? How indeed? But in our case things are a bit different.

 

They are?

 

Oh yes.

 

How so?

 

We have the transcript.

 

We do?

 

Grrrr! Give me a break you apathetic lump of quantum metabolism.

 

Oh, ok. Here you are.

 

What on Earth is that?

 

Look at it.

 

It’s hard to focus my eyes. What is?

 

Plasma goo.

 

Plasma goo.

 

Or call it whatever you like. It’s what you asked for.

 

It is?

 

Yep. It’s a break.

 

I wasn’t speaking literally, you know.

 

I know – but it really doesn’t matter – does it. Words, ultimately have the propensity to stab us in the back and hold us fully accountable.

 

Er… ok. A break. Some kind of plasmoid – that seems fairly benign but could be, potentially, lethal.

 

Good description. Colour?

 

Do you have to use British English spelling?

 

Not really – I can say it instead. “Colour”.

 

Nope. You said it with a “u” too.

 

Damn!

 

Hey – watch it.

 

Watch what?

 

Your tongue.

 

Since when were you concerned about mild expletives, Zlata?

 

Not me, M – the plasmoid.

 

Since when were you concerned about a non-descript plasmoid?

 

That’s just the thing – M – it seems utterly non-descript but when you said the “d” word.

 

You mean “damn”?

 

Wincing  Please, M, I implore you. Puff doesn’t like it.

 

Puff the plasmoid? Please, Zlata, tell me you’re having me on.

 

Didn’t you see?

 

See what?

 

It rippled, it almost coloured when you said “d”.

 

Damn?

 

Aow! Cut it out, M.

 

Damn, damn, damn 

 

Unbeknownst to M the plasmoid starts vibrating ever faster, drawing in ever more energy from the vacuum and suddenly kind of burps.

 

What the heck?

 

I warned you M.

 

What is it?

 

No, don’t touch it, M. I suspect it’s a kind of quantum anomaly – a time bubble or something like that.

 

Give me a break, Zlata. You know nothing about plasmoids.

 

I don’t need to. I just felt what was happening to Puff.

 

“Puff the magic dragon”. Look, I’m going to pop this bubble and demonstrate that it’s…

 

Oh dear!

 

M vanishes, to re-emerge 3 years later.

 

 

Oh my.

 

Are you ok M?

 

I don’t know. I’m feeling an overpowering sense of

 

Déjà vu?

 

Yes, how did you know?

 

No matter M.

 

No matter? Literally?

 

No matter. As in “nothing”, think nothing of it.

 

Oh no. The déjà vu is intensifying.

 

It is?

 

It’s too much. I’m going to drown.

 

Really M, stop being so dramatic. You’re just experiencing some mild temporal dislocation. Puff has this under control.

 

Puff? Suddenly dawning. You mean to say Puff is responsible for me blacking out?

 

No, M, I mean nothing of the sort. You are entirely responsible. You triggered a time event by cussing Puff.

 

Oh, so it’s an my fault, is it? Anyway, how long have i been out for the count?

 

You weren’t exactly out for the count, M.

 

No?

 

No. Just out.

 

Ok, whatever, quit splitting hairs. For Chrissake, Zlata.

 

Ominous plasmic growling.

 

Er... Sorry Fluff.

 

Her name is Puff, M. Kindly show a little respect.

 

Will do. My apologies Puff. Now answer the bloody question.

 

Another burp of time vacuity appears before M.

 

You wanted déjà vu, M? You got it.

 

Yikes. Puff. I’m an idiot. I apoligise.

 

Spell it right M.

 

Must I?

 

Yes, otherwise it’s null and void.

 

D****! Sigh... I apologise Puff, and Zlata and the Chris whose name i invoked, t notwithstanding.

 

Ok.  The time vacuity flups back to unfullness.

 

Three years.

 

Three years? I was out for three years?

 

Yes.

 

All for nothing.

 

Yep. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

 

Oh.

 

Actually Puff can reel you back like a fish if you like.

 

He can?

 

She.

 

Oops. She can?

 

If you like.

 

This I’ve got to experience.

 

Ok... Here goes.

 

What are you doing Zlata? Put it down.

 

Don’t worry M, I’m not really going to kill you. Just have to create a little ripple in your continuum.

 

With a hand grenade?

 

Pulling the pin.

 

Eeeeeeek!

 

The grenade explodes but before anything untoward happens M finds himself floundering like a fish on dry land, flapping and flailing desperately trying to find some kind of purchase, something to push against, some kind of medium but to no avail.

 

Help! I can’t swim in whatever this is.

 

Correct, M. But if you’d kindly cease thrashing around I’d be happy to reel you in.

 

Oh. Er... thanks.

 

Think nothing of it.

 

Nothing? Er... Do I know you? I don’t believe...

 

Puff. Your arch nemesis.

 

You? You’re Puff?

 

As you see.

 

But I don’t see. You’re... how can I describe you?

 

However you like.

 

Let me see...

 

Your wish is my command!

 

A different kind of vision switches on. You’re the most beautiful, scintillating, golden dragon-like being I’ve ever encountered.

 

Why thank you, M. The last time your description was somewhat less flattering.

 

I know. Please forgive me. How could I have so misread your energy?

 

Precisely because you were ignoring my energy and merely looking at my 3D formity.

 

But couldn’t you have a more impressive 3D form Puff?

 

Not really, M.

 

Why not?

 

If I diverted all or most my energy into establishing an ambassadorial 3D formity I’d have to give up my plasmic domain. I’d have to trade infinity for a steaming pile of doo-doo, otherwise known as matter.

 

Hey! Matter’s not that bad. Have a little consideration for us physical beings. We work damn 🌩️ hard keeping things together in...

 

Oh dear M. I understand life is tough in 3D but can’t you see here what your expletives are doing?

 

From the void of timelessness, out of the sound and thought trails of M’s last “damn” were bubbling hellish vortices of something repugnant, something threatening and antithetical to life and joy and ³.

 

Yikes! Me? I did that?

 

You could say. Give me a second while I neutralise the nastiness leaking into our...

 

Our what?

 

Careful M, you’re depleting yourself and I need to get you back to where you technically died.

 

When Zlata tossed a hand grenade at me?

 

No M. You technically died when you somewhat foolishly treated the vacuity of time as a laughing matter.

 

Oh. But, wasn’t I just alive a moment ago?

 

Three years after disappearing from “the face of the earth, Zlata and I managed to extricate you from the infinite flux of any-thing-ity.

 

Oh! You saved my life?!

 

Kind of.

 

I’m truly grateful. Truly.

 

Ah, that’s more like it! Well done M.

 

You appreciate gratitude?

 

I’m not quite the same as your 3D human beings, M. Your gratitude reconnects you with your greater Is, your allness, your whole, and strengthens your luminosity. You should be able to feel me reeling you in.

 

Oh yes, I do. I feel it. Weird, very weird, like your pulling me from inside my stomach.

 

That’s right.

 

So when I was cursing or trying to define where we are...

 

You were depleting your energy and growing ever fainter. You were in danger of slipping through the net, back into infinity.

 

But isn’t this infinity here?

 

Believe it or not, M, everything is infinity, or everywhere, but some levels of infinity are mire real seeming than others.

 

In what way?

 

In the sense that here, for example, you still have sufficient energy to see and talk with me.

 

Ah.

 

And I can be of some assistance to you.

 

But if I depleted my energy and sank to a lower level...

 

There’s no saying or no knowing. Infinity is, after all, infinite.

 

But you, Puff, would i be able to access your ness?

 

No, me thinks not. It would be like going down to an atomic level, or beyond.

 

Beyond atomic?

 

Yes, for example photonic.

 

Oh. So we’re more advanced than atoms or photons?

 

No M. You are that you are, more or less, which means that at your own positional level you are best able to become more conscious of your true nature, your isness, and thus square the circle, thus become complete.

 

Ah.

 

Whereas, were you to sink down to a level beneath your own, you’d have to somehow figure out how to re-ascend to your “proper” position in the continuum in order to then achieve completeness.

 

Ok, I can accept that.

 

You can equally not accept that and be none the worse.

 

Huh?

 

Not accepting what Is is not a bad thing, in the same way leaving your home and going on a long voyage is not a bad thing if you like travelling, or if you’re keen to learn what other countries or cultures have to teach you.

 

Oh. But if I just want to get straight back to my optimal comfort zone?

 

You would consult your totality.

 

My totality?

 

Your allness, your isness, call it what you will.

 

And it could get me home in a jiffy?

 

Absolutely.

 

Absolutely? Why does that word ring alarm bells Puff?

 

The Absolute is a bit like God, isn’t it?

 

And?

 

The Absolute can do anything whatsoever if you’re willing to let it do so.

 

And?

 

You might not be willing to.

 

Er... why not?

 

You might have entangled yourself in all kinds of conflicting narratives which are a bit like wires or tape passing around or even through you. The Absolute can absolutely cut through all these like a knife through butter. They are merely narratives or computer code, you could say.

 

So what’s the problem then?

 

The problem is whether you would remain whole or fragment into a million pieces like a crystal vase.

 

Gulp!

 

If those narratives are ugly, pernicious, demented they would draw life force from you, investing it, sending it into pet projects which might have become more real, more vibrant, more alive than you. Extricating yourself from this cat’s cradle of false allegiances might require great patience and forbearance, if indeed it can be done.

 

Oh dear. Is that the way you see me?

 

Tush tush, M. Forbear! Again you are depleting yourself. We’re not quite back yet.

 

But what about you Puff?

 

What about me?

 

Are you...

 

 

Beep beep beep!

 

 

Wake up M. Open your eyes.

 

Oh, hi Zlata. I was talking with Puff.

 

With Puff?

 

Your dragon.

 

Huh? M are you ok?

 

Er, I’m not sure. When is this, can you tell me?

 

What do you mean when? It’s now.

 

Yes, I know that, but is this before i foolishly stepped into Puff’s time anomaly or...

 

Honestly M, I don’t know what’s come over you. First you zonk out, mid way through our live stream broadcast leaving me to hold the fort, to talk to our audience off the cuff all by myself.

 

Oh, how did you get on Zlata?

 

How did I get on? How do you think?

 

I expect you did really well.

 

Really?

 

Yes. I know you have a deep, intuitive connection with the Field.

 

Er M, what’s come over you? It’s not like you to be so...

 

But it’s true Zlata. I misjudged you horribly in the past, didn’t I, before I met Puff.

 

My dragon?

 

Yes.

 

And what did my dragon tell you M?

 

It’s not important, really, what she told me.

 

No?

 

It’s more important where we were.

 

And where exactly were you?

 

Quite literally nowhere.

 

Nowhere?

 

And nowhen, I kid you not.

 

Oh. And how did it feel?

 

It was good because I was with Puff, and Puff helped me see or feel something I never saw or felt before.

 

Oh. I’m glad.

 

Me too. But what did you talk to them about.

 

That? You want to know about the show?

 

Of course I do.

 

Why?

 

Because it’s important.

 

Is it? Are you sure?

 

Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t ask, would I?

 

I hardly know, M.

 

Well?

 

Well I found myself talking about Blake.

 

Blake? The poet?

 

Of course, who else.

 

And what were you saying?

 

You know how it is...

 

Really Zlata, I’d love to hear.

 

Er... Well he was this mystic, this visionary living in 18^th century London during the time of the American war of independence and the French revolution.

 

Right.

 

And he wrote these poems that almost no one bothered to read in his lifetime, illustrating them and printing them on his very own press, barely making eggs meet.

 

Sounds rather sad to me.

 

Yes, but he persisted; he lived his life remaining true to his rather eccentric mission, accompanied by his loving wife, and then he died, like a saint if the eyewitness description is reliable.

 

To be buried in a pauper’s grave, if my memory serves me correctly.

 

Yes. But then a hundred years later his work was rediscovered and he’s never looked back.

 

Because he’s dead.

 

Yes, but...

 

Hey... Zlata what’s happening to you? Are you ok.

 

Oh nothing M. Nothing...

 

You seem to be shrinking.

 

I...

 

Oh my God. Where is she? Zlata! Ow, ow, ow, what’s that yanking my stomach. Ow!

 

Cut

 

 

M, I can’t believe it. You’re back! Look Puff.

 

Oh, this is getting rather confusing.

 

Not surprising. Infinity is the one thing guaranteed to blow your mind.

 

Yes, I think I see why.

 

Which is why we invested so much in this so-called reality.

 

So you know about that too.

 

Duh! It would be a bit hard for me not to.

 

How come?

 

M looks at how Puff the plasmoid and Zlata now seem to be fully connected and comfortably one.

 

Oh. I see.

 

You do?

 

Yes. You know whatever Puff is thinking, don’t you.

 

Kind of.

 

So... Ow my head.

 

Careful M, if you try to hard to put all the pieces in place you’ll perhaps explain the past but lise everything else.

 

Everything else?

 

Like the present.

 

You think so?

 

Well, as you’ve already been to hell and back I think you should know so.

 

But I didn’t go to hell Zlata.

 

No?

 

No, it was... Ow, ow, my head.

 

I did warn you.

 

But I can’t just stop thinking and trying to explain what is what, can i!

 

They, M, is precisely what you need to do.

 

But then what would I do with myself? Explaining things is my main purpose in life.

 

Is it?

 

 Well, it was...

 

How about Fluff.

 

Fluff? I already got in trouble for that.

 

For what?

 

For misnaming your dragon.

 

Oh, Fluff is not mine?

 

No, then whose?

 

Everyone has a plasmoid, M.

 

Everyone?

 

Well yes, as all of us are now able to access the quantum Field.

 

We are?

 

Where have you been living, bro, under a rock?

 

Yes, I rather think I have. So you’re saying i have a plasmoid too?

 

Well how else do you explain all your continuity lapses?

 

Oh, insanity, perhaps... fatigue... dementia...

 

Are you going to invite Fluff into the dialogue or not, M?

 

I’m not sure I can Zlata. I’m not sure about this. Fluff sounds such a silly name for my dragon.

 

Well, naturally, he’s chosen a name to take you down a notch or two, hasn’t he.

 

Oh great.

 

If it’s any consolation M, it’s not his real name.

 

No?

 

Just a handle to get you started.

 

Oh i see.

 

In any case, I think you’ve already met him.

 

No, I think I’d know if I’d already met my dragon Zlata.

 

Don’t be so sure of yourself M. They come from all-that-is-not-3D so we are like newborn children by comparison.

 

Oh dear, it’s going to be that kind of patronising relationship is it?

 

Well, how did it feel when you were lost between worlds?

 

I was talking to Puff so it felt fine, you know.

 

For a brief moment Puff reveals her dragony essence. There’s clearly some discrepancy.

 

Oh. It wasn’t Puff?

 

Careful M. Trying too hard to figure things out just gets you tied up in figures of things.

 

But i can’t just stop thinking...

 

You can do something better.

 

I can?

 

Yes, you can start fluffing.

 

Ha ha, very funny.

 

No really, M. If not now then when... Otherwise how are you going to escape from the vacuity of time?

 

Oh no, not again...

 

Cut

 

 

M wakes groggily to find what looks like a big shaggy dog licking his face. He gets to his feet to see Zlata beaming at him.

 

Oh splendid, M, you’re just in time for the William Blake livestream.

 

It’s taken care of, Zlata.

 

Huh?

 

You’re doing it yourself.

 

I am?

 

Yes, otherwise Puff won’t make it.

 

Puff?

 

Or Fluff.

 

Fluff? Oh dear Michelangelo, perhaps you do need a rest. You’ve been working so hard. Why don’t I take care of the show this evening?

 

Yes, I would really appreciate that and Zlata, i know you’ll do a wonderful job!

 

Oh!

 

Warm feelings rippling through the vacuum of time and space, as two dragons prepare to plant a small part of their infinite awareness in plasmic dust somewhere here in 3D so-called reality.

 

0=1

merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

so sang a little clod of clay;

tyger, tyger burning bright

i fear the forest of the night

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