On the Third Day, Boulder (barrier)
VI.vi.
— Six.
Anesthetic Annie has pretzel eyes, all twisted and mixed up, he couldn’t follow her continuity with his vision, and it feels like his ocular orbs are bloodshot buoys in a saline harbor of calm. He wants to reveal his admiration for her in thumbs up, but his circuits have been disconnected. He is not frenzied by the experience, he is deeply comfortable. His mind tries to hold on to the last breadcrumbs of causality by attaching itself to the present now() with hyper-focus. And everything is even slower than before. And amidst this chaotic grid of rippling energy he might be able to reconstruct pathways to his shoulders to teach his arms to tell his fingers to roll over and jab a thumbnail in the fierce gaze of the sun.
Annie and her six-shooter hooters! Jump in boys, the water’s warm. She’s walking Versace down the gangway in her uniform costume, top cut down below the pop of the navel and the flop of my weasel. Hold on, hold up, hold over, hold on. This is coming from the other side…
I’ve never gotten the chance to exist twice in one instant before. It was always the liquid spray of memory pattern mapping to the unfolding arrow of the present, but now() we’re both here.
We’re both ten years old and fifty-one. So it will happen again. How did I miss that? Because of the ether when this is happening? Because I wouldn’t be able to remember it then, so I couldn’t possibly know it now. But now I know that there are two incidences of God-printing in my life. “Hallelujah.”
No, I mean that, I really do, it’s such a terrific joy to know it will happen to me again. What should I do with him? What should I tell him? How do I prove to him that I am from the past when all I’ve come with is half-a-consciousness? If I could just tell him one thing, what should I say?
Here he comes, Milo, Milo. He’s playing with army men near the backyard sandbox. Looks like he’s lining up a few of them for battle. He only took five out of the bag and he’s got his Walkman, I can’t hear what he’s playing. No, I don’t think he’s playing anything. He’s just playing with it. Why do I look so concerned, Milo? What’s wrong? Shouldn’t I know what’s wrong? No, I don’t remember what we were playing, or… I remember enjoying playing with G.I. Joe’s well enough, but… this seems weirdly serious. Kind of uncanny. Can we just go in for a closer look?
— Simon! It’s you!
It’s us, Milo. We and you, it’s us. I want to find some way to smile, but I’m not sure where my mouth is.
— Simon, shh. I’m glad you’re here but times are tough.
Milo peeks over a sandy mountain range with binoculars imaging a close up cavort of aphid on leaf and drops back to join the six of us.
— I’ve told Mission Control about our situation, and they told us to protect the plans with our lives. They must not fall into enemy hands.
Milo puts a confidante arm around me.
— Don’t tell the other guys, Simon, but I’m worried.
Whatever about, Milo? We know the future together, you and me Milo. I’m the guy who took your leg, and you took mine, Milo. We met and fused together years ago before any of this is happening. And just as quickly we were separated, each of us losing a piece of ourselves in this other dimension. But I’m really here with you now, Milo. I’m not just a voice in your head, I’m a real boy, and I’m you!
Milo looked as though he were tearing up, and swallowing shifts of somberness. But he was just laughing to himself.
— Simon, Simon, Simple Simon. You’re my invisible friend. I made you up. Don’t go start and get all smart with me now, just ’cause I’m smart.
Well then tell me, this man who would be king, this man plucked from the whorling wand of the universe and set with the unique bequest of helping you protect your… what was it we’re trying to protect again?
— Great, I can really use your help, Simon. I’d honestly forgotten you were here.
You bet, Milo, my aim is to serve and understand. What is it you’re protecting?
Milo reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a stick of Juicy Fruit, crumpling it into his mouth.
— They’re going to be coming from all over the place, Simon, we’re not going to be able to stop them. I’m just figuring something out, and I think I have an idea. Will you help me?
Of course, Milo, anything you need. Just tell me.
There’s much talk about the harsh naked uncaring brutality of Mother Nature. In Darwinian popular canon, every species has but two all-encompassing and infinitely compelling urges: eat and avoid being eaten. Nothing has been symbiotically designed to help you beyond your own biochemical instincts and wits, and all of it either actively wants you dead or dismisses you as irrelevant.
Yet for all the unyielding cruelty of life and cold hard universal living, when was the last time you saw a non-insectoid creature die by a non-human creature’s actions? It is so very rare and but lasts the shortest interval, often taking place under the cover of darkness. There is nothing glorious about the eradication of animated spirit and consciousness, and more integrated species understand this implicitly.
Television and Video Game violence appears to me as a laughing nod to the fragility of this framework, and how important it is to protect it. We’re protecting the experiential network of understanding that has become manifest inside of it and because of it. Without those packets of individuation to careen and impact one another as partial cells of Sister Knowledge improves the chances of survival. For all of them.
That’s what we’re protecting, isn’t it.
— That’s exactly right, Simon. I couldn’t have said it better…
She was a sinister fox, that Anesthetic Annie. It’s hard to imagine such a little sex kitten having such a job, and yet it has some poetic elegance to it, doesn’t it. Her siren beck and call assisted by ether to erase the sailor from the man. And all she’s got to contend with is a swollen specimen with shrivel-tensing testicles. How easy to sing a pressing song and accept the accolades, so long as the impact doesn’t stain one’s ovum dressing and reputation. Her melancholy sneer tossed with hope that someone might understand and appeal to her wry skepticism. She won’t be there for Milo when he comes of age, and the memory of her is too stacked with fear and fascination, but so long as we’re here for the ride before the metal grates shut down between us and the hippocampus.
At least enjoy those ruby pickled lips. They’re pursing with anticipation of speech. She leans forward as she utters
“5”