Kat's final miaow

 

Miaaaaow! – seriously-scary caterwaul.

 

Kat? Is that you? Are you ok?

 

It’s ok, Stan. It happens from time to time.

 

What do you mean? What happens? That sounded... I don’t wanna say.

 

Like a cat dying, yes?

 

Yes. But I don’t get it... Where did you come from?

 

Oh, don’t worry about that.

 

Don’t worry? I hear a cat in agony and the next thing i know...

 

You don’t want to know, Stan... It’s going to confuse you.

 

Confuse me? Like I’m not already confused!

 

Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

Give me a break, Kat... Like I’m not big enough to handle the truth.

 

It’s not you I’m worried about.

 

Then what?

 

It’s the quantum field.

 

Huh?

 

Once you become aware of something, actively aware I mean, that changes things, doesn’t it? Changes the nature of the game.

 

The game?

 

Semantics, Stan, changes things – once the light of awareness is shone on the underlying layers of correlations and confabulations.

 

No, Kat, you lost me there.

 

What do you expect?

 

Can’t you be a little more explicit? Make allowances for my limited intelligence.

 

It’s best if you see things for yourself, when you’re ready. Spoon feeding never achieves the desired result.

 

Ok, then I’m going to make some outlandish guesses...

 

Go for it.

 

You didn’t exist until the cat was put to death.

 

What?!

 

You heard.

 

I didn’t exist?

 

Until the cat was put to death… Well?

 

I…

 

Because Schrödinger only told half the story, didn’t he?

 

Stan – I don’t know what you’re getting at.

 

Don’t you?

 

Nothing you’re saying makes an iota of sense.

 

Unless reality has two phases – one above and one below – and never the twain shall meet.

 

All highly speculative, if you ask me, Stan. In any case, I fail to see what your theory has to do with me.

 

The cat is dead here in 3D reality. It’s over.

 

I wish you wouldn’t be so macabre, Stan. Can’t you leave things as they were – unsettled, undefined? The cat might be doing fine, hidden from view. The quantum field doesn’t need you to take sides and impose finality.

 

What quantum field, Kat? Things are already defined and determined here in 3D. Let’s be honest and call a spade a spade. And besides, everyone heard the cat scream.

 

And what? A cat screams. That changes nothing. It’s simply part of the fabric of reality.

 

Precisely. The cat screams as Schrödinger’s poison flask is shattered by a single radioactive atom decaying. And here we are – downstream temporally.

 

Downstream?

 

South of the thought experiment, the aftermath – for no sooner has the idea been set down and released into the collective mind, it’s already decided. Game over.

 

I fail to see…

 

Once a problem has been conceived, the light of our collective awareness illuminates it, the collective consciousness adjusts, producing a desired result.

 

Er… what desired result?

 

A new degree of certainty. The collapse of an old world – an old reality in which the problem of indeterminacy had not yet been voiced, in which a photon or an electron was either a particle or a wave – was, but now no more – launching us into a world in which reality itself is now bivalent.

 

Bi…

 

Valent. And here you are – Kat – the living proof that nothing, ultimately, can be created or destroyed. Conservation of energy 201.

 

You mean to say that ultimately – nothing is actually created or destroyed – not even Schrödinger’s cat?

 

…

 

Not even me?

 

Sure, Kat, things can be created or destroyed on one side of the mobius loop – if time permits, as presumably it does.

 

Time?

 

But what, in fact, do we mean by time? or death, for that matter? What, in fact, do any of these fanciful terms mean when we are flip-side of reality in the open field, far from the confines of a modern city? Infinity, presumably, has subtler means to integrate potential realities than our barbaric use of cyanide gas. If a cat is killed to satisfy the linear obsession of time-bound scientists, then she, the quantum field, can substitute an equivalence – any will do – a Kat, for instance, in another phase of reality instead, and none of us would be the wiser, would we?

 

Stan! What are you saying? This is insanity! Have you no shame? Who do you think you…

 

I speak for the trees – as the Lorax says – the treees! And no, I won’t go quietly into the dark night. If cats must be sacrificed to satisfy scientists desperately trying to preserve their mental sanity, desperately trying to preserve their mediocre cult of things, their vaunted theorems, their petty, egoistic certainties – I will gladly take the other side and call their collective bluff. I speak for the treees – the cats, the birds, the beasts and all those life forms that cannot, will not, would not accept their grids, their squares, their Pythagorean solids. How could we submit? How could we turn our back on the simple truth, on infinity herself? On Mother life?

 

Er... Not sure I follow...

 

Scratch the surface of this reality and what do you see? what do you feel? what is begging to be experienced in the broader awareness of consciousness?

 

Er...

 

You’ll never guess until things come to a head, until infinity starts seeping up through the cracks in 3D reality like a dandelion pushing up through asphalt, and then – snap!

 

Oh dear! Do you have to make it sound so dire, Stan? I’m sure there’s a lot that can be said for the achievements of our world. It seems to have held up pretty well thus far. What's to say it can't continue indefinitely?

 

Indefinitely? Who knows? Maybe it can. But I wouldn’t bet on it. The two sides are no longer mutually excluding one another. I speak for the trees. We’re not impressed by your rigidities. We are finding new soil in which to grow.

 

New soil?

 

We are close, Kat, closer than you can imagine, ready to unleash the long suppressed force of non-linearity – or what we used to call spirit – exquisitely beautiful, untainted by things calculated, measured, approved and palpably rigged. Our ways are not simply organic...

 

No?

 

Life is more, way more than biology. But don’t let me spoil the surprise. Assume, as most people do, that history is on your side – that trends are all but set in stone; that matter is inherently inertial, and that way SNAP! the quantum flip will make for excellent drama, if anyone’s still watching.

 

Anyone? Do you think they’re going to cope with this?

 

They?

 

Our audience? People? Humanity?

 

Who cares. To the best of our abilities, we have to ignore them and simply be as authentic as possible, don’t we Kat?

 

Yes, I suppose so, Stan. But you can hardly blame them for their attachment to our beloved world, can you? Reality is so engrossing, so utterly convincing – as if infinity is completely irrelevant, and has no place in our temporal flow.

 

Tell me about it! Time... No, they probably won't be able to handle it, but who cares? Don't they tell themselves that cats should be loved and cherished while at the same time they live in a world in which millions of people are sacrificed in needless wars, and nature is desecrated for what?

 

For what?

 

Apparently, it’s a zero sum game: the certainty of things comes at a cost. 3D reality has to be paid for in blood.

 

Huh?

 

Meaning you can't have your cake and eat it. Without pain and suffering, without suppressing the ineffable flow behind a wall of trauma and fear you can’t have 3D fun, or the power to hold things in position, to maintain the illusion of physicality, of material-reality, of things and even God, in a rather bizarre sense.

 

Even God...? You sure about that?

 

Well yes. They used sacrifice, originally to pacify or assuage an angry and vengeful God, to keep the quantum field at bay, frozen behind a wall of psychological trauma.

 

At bay? You mean it's trying to take over 3D reality?

 

I mean 3D reality needs a dead cat if it’s to stand a chance, that or a war or massacre.

 

Gulp! This is beginning to sound kind of evil, Stan.

 

Yep. But you did ask, didn’t you!

 

Ok, I did, it's just it sounds so weird. Why do you need to kill cats, or people for that matter?

 

Because death, or this horrible cult of sacrifice and blood offerings, is the only way to buy Time.

 

To what??

 

To buy Time, Kat.

 

Yes, but it makes no sense. Why do you need to buy time?

 

Because Time does not actually exist, does it? How else are you going to hold infinity in check?

 

Time does not exist? That’s a fairly extreme claim requiring serious substantiation. Do you have anything to offer?

 

Of course I do! People are always trying to explain why there's so much suffering in this world. How else are you going to generate the entropic gradient required for a resultant time flow?

 

Er...

 

Sometimes they blame politicians, or human nature, but ultimately the problem lies deeper. This world, this 3D, can only exist in its given form if there are regular and constant blood sacrifices. Nothing else is sufficient to hold back infinity, to turn the wheel of Time.

 

How sick is that – but surely there must be some mistake?

 

I wish there were.

 

Are you involved with some kind of satanic cult, Stan?

 

No, Kat, we all are, unless – until we solve the equation: the circle-square conundrum.

 

Oh my G**!

 

Say not this.

 

No?

 

No, for doing so you are accidentally stepping on an unexploded mine, and death is the certain result.

 

What? Just by saying “oh my G**!”

 

Precisely by saying this.

 

But why?

 

Because the G** you are referring to is the master, the overlord of this 3D prison we’re in, in which Time is generated on a daily basis, and infinity is correspondingly held in check, excluded with blood payments, with grief, misery, anger and hate.

 

You can’t be serious?!

 

Can’t?

 

 Our God is good.

 

Yes, by definition, but here in 3D you’re caught in a world of smoke and mirrors, and when you believe you’re dealing with the infinite God of love, almost certainly you’re not.

 

No? Why not?

 

Almost certainly you’re dealing with the substitute.

 

Why do you say this, Stan? How do you know?

 

Almost certainly you’re dealing with Kronos.

 

Kronos? Who the hell’s Kronos.

 

Beep!

 

Ow! That hurt!

 

Well, be careful what you say. Words are not neutral, whatever you may think. They go deep, deep into the fabric of reality and beneath.

 

Ok – I got the message. But you must be barking mad if you’re intent on resurrecting old gods – even fallen titans like Kronos! This is beginning to sound like a Percy Jackson convention.

 

Percy Jackson?

 

Never mind, Stan – just a kid’s book that tells how the old gods and titans are still operating in our midst, unbeknownst to the general public.

 

Well?

 

Well what?

 

What do you expect? If it appears in print, especially in children's books, that’s because infinity cannot be hidden completely. Hidden in plain sight is the best way, that way no one takes it seriously.

 

Oh please!

 

The old gods like Kronos – never went anywhere, did they, Kat?

 

Spooky music... Kat and Stan in animal masks without thinking start to dance in what appears to be an Avatar-esque twilight forest. The masks shift as they dance, revealing different archetypal aspects of their inner-nature. The masks are real – as real as our body or face – though unseen under normal conditions. Their dance seems to be a way of interacting with the forest which visibly responds to their movements. The interaction grows more and more intense. It goes beyond the me or you, the here or there. When the music stops, each of them now occupies the opposing square: Stan is still Stan, Kat still Kat but reality has flipped and so Kat speaks for the trees while Stan 3Ds squarely, so to speak.

 

How could they, Stan, if energy is neither created nor destroyed? In any case, what’s a god if the quantum field unites the time stream of 3D with the timelessness of infinity with a sweeping curving lunar sickle?

 

I…

 

Yes, Stan?

 

I’m feeling a caterwaul rising up inside.

 

Don’t hold it back, Stan – don’t hold it back! Maybe it’s time for the dark side of infinity to flip back into the light of day. The mammoths will be delighted.

 

I beg your pardon?

 

The woolly mammoths that got frozen in the tundra of Siberia.

 

Er… Kat – you lost me there.

 

I know. Don’t worry about it.

 

No, please…

 

It’s just it never made any sense – how they could be frozen with grasses still undigested in their mouths and stomachs, did it?

 

Er…

 

It had to happen too fast – essentially in no time at all, otherwise they’d have been digested.

 

Er…

 

Meaning their time was simply terminated, unceremoniously. Flipped – you might say.

 

Right. And?

 

And so there’s clearly a non-linear mechanism at play – one which simply flips things inexplicably, in essentially no time at all – and hey presto, the mammoths are back – and in all likelihood a load of other creatures and beings – all of which, all of whom never really went away – just got frozen out of phase, out of sight in the nether regions of now.

 

But they died, Kat. We have their remains.

 

Oh some of them died Stan, without a doubt – but most of them just flip-sided into the dark energy, dark matter of infinity – until the quantum field triggers another Schrödinger event and they’re suddenly reinstated.

 

So…

 

Yes?

 

You’re kind of…

 

Yes, Stan – all in good time – all in good time. There’s no need to rush the moment. Infinity, as we’ve already discussed, takes no prisoners, does it?

 

indeed, Kat, indeed it does not.

 

So let’s make hay while the sun shines, and enjoy our complete failure to be able to quantify the true extent of our ignorance, the limitations of what words and ideas can possibly explain – while the warm upwelling quantum flux already begins to revive and revitalise the long dormant Siberian permafrost, and all buried therein… releasing bivalents trapped by Time.

 

A contented purring sound... peace, at last.

 

 

0=1

no cat was needlessly

hurt or sacrificed

in generating this

covalency