Power has returned to my fingers and the juice is flowing once again. Welcome to the Quirky Muffin, my friends, the land where nothing remains the same but also never changes. I'm your host, the perennially lost mathematician Oliver and this is the land of make believe. Today we see the latest episode in what may turn out to be something special (for some definition of the word 'special'. As part of the James Horner score for 'The Rocketeer' soars around the room, it's best to get down to business.
It always pays to write them fast!
-----
'Triangles', XI
(Part X , XII)
The food was delicious, and Delores could hardly get enough of it as Ernest retrieved it from a little empty alcove in the wall. It was just a little reminiscent of Star Trek. That brought on a pang of nostalgia and she examined Ernest anew.
"You can't see it. It's well hidden." Ernest tried a smile but kind of flopped into puzzled half-grin instead.
"Huh?"
"I'm just as you are, a mortal on this plane of reality, such as it is." Ernest gestured around at the statuary and grandiose surrounding. They were in a yellow stone square, that smelt faintly of honeysuckle and wine, and was utterly deserted. There were buildings facing all around, seeminly deserted.
"'Such is it is'? You are going to tell me where we are, aren't you?"
Ernest shifted in his seat a little. He had dragged a couple of folding chairs from what seemed to be a little bazaar a little further around the fountain to the left. He was monumentally unused to the ways of such mobile furniture. It wobbled a little dangerously. More like a scene out of 'Doctor Who' than 'Star Trek', after all.
"This is not the easiest thing to explain." More thought seemed to tear through the impassive mind buried deep in Ernest's brain. "Perhaps an analogy is in order. Observe. No, hang on a moment." He ducked back into the bazaar and emerged quickly with a small sack of juggling balls and a determined expression. "Observe." He began to juggle eight or nine balls effortlessly and started to talk. "I'm juggling in three spatial dimensions, and the balls are following a circular path as well as I can manage. You can perceive the centre to their motion. Now I'll do this!"
Delores was shocked to see that the balls were now spitting in and out of view in a small shower of water droplets. Little rainbows shattered on a moment by moment basis. "What...?"
"I'm now juggling in four dimensions - don't look at my hands - about a new centre of motion that means nothing to your perceptions. And this... five dimensions... means you hardly see the balls at all... No matter how many dimensions we go to there's always a way to juggle around a common centre of motion in what is equivalent to a circle. You just can't see it." The juggling balls vanished and didn't return as he ceased his efforts. "I put them back in the bazaar in a much easier manner."
"We are in the Junction, the ancient nexus by which life forms - of whom we shall not speak right now - from all over every dimension came together to exchange goods and ideas. It has been neglected for several long cycles now, but shall inevitably be discovered again one day, perhaps by you. You have great intelligence and perceptivity, much more so than I thought initially. You observe all."
Delores finally had her turn to speak but chose not to.
"While the Other bonds all the dimensions together in his mysterious ways he may not know about the existence of this place, if it is a place at all. In many ways it is more of a state of mind. A home away from home. It's strange to be so small, so far away from my own home. Even as I juggled my balls, all the known planes of reality gravitate around a common point, the Junction."
"In reality you're a vast entity, no more a person than a God, something else entirely. What are you doing here? Why talk to me? What is it you want?" Delores stood up, suddenly a little angry. "Why are these things happening to me? Why am I here and not back at home in my little flat, wondering what to do with my holidays? Alone again."
"I don't know. I was hoping by meeting you I could deduce why you were chosen to cross the thresholds and become a leader in whatever the Other was planning. This... Junction... has existed since time immemorial and I created a temporary bridge just to get you here without their noticing. I had hoped you could tell me what to do. This idea of conflict is unknown to me as crossing into whole new worlds is to you."
What would happen if you were alone over all time eternal, with no equals and only one task to be performed? Would you know what to do if a rival appeared, seeking to pervert the course of things that must be? Could someone who had never been faced down by the school bully and stood up to tell the tale even conceive of the ways lesser beings lived their lives on a day to day basis. It all became clear.
"Ernest - What a name for such a being! - you're saying you don't know how to save everything?" Delores looked the once omnipotent being in the eye. "You've been alone for your whole existence?"
The earnest Ernest hesitated a moment. "Let's say 'yes'? There are parts I don't remember to be honest, moments of abandon inevitable in a sojourn so long amongst hyper-stars and cosmic ribbons."
"I think I'd better give you some schooling in how to do things the down and dirty lesser being way. And then I'm going home. After helping save everything, including ice cream and apple pie. And after you've told me how people could get to this Junction without building tunnels and bridges that you said were dangerous."
Ernest nodded, winced, and waited. There had to be more.
"And you have to explain to me why this has to be the work of an enemy, an adversary. Why can't it be the way things are supposed to be? Why can't it be the result of something bigger than even you?"
<faint to black>
You all have to wait too... for the conclusion to Phase One of 'Triangles'!
No comments:
Post a Comment