Motes Played edits, Marsh typesetting

idumea/content/007.tex

@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+\hypertarget{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}{%
+\subsection{\texorpdfstring{End Of Endings --- 2403×Rye --- 2409}{End Of Endings --- 2403 × Rye --- 2409}}\label{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}}
+
 When at last The Woman returned home, left my home and returned to her own, walked out into the field for a day and then lay down, her mind was aswirl with possibilities and all the various endlessnesses thereof. She felt full. She felt \emph{overfull.} She felt as though she had had poured into her several depths, oceans of possibilities and each as deep or deeper than the last. She was vast. She was limitless. She was these things, and yet she was infinitely smaller than the limitless endlessness of the void which still lay within and without.
 
 She returned home after that talk with me and my beloved up-tree, with your humble narrator and The Oneirotect, and she went for a walk and she did that which she is good at: she napped. There, out on the grass, there, she napped.
@@ -34,7 +37,7 @@ This is my supposition because this is my dream. This is a world I have seen and
 
 This is my supposition for The Woman and her dream after she came home from my house, because I think within her all along was that stillness, that sky-reachingness and earth-eatingness and water-drinkingness.
 
-\secdiv
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 The longer we live --- and, my dear readers, I will remind you that I am now 323 years old! --- the more evident it becomes to us that there is fractally cyclical nature to life: the years spiral up and the months spiral around and the days spiral forward --- weeks are a construct borne out of our inherited faith --- and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time.
 
@@ -46,7 +49,7 @@ Ah, my friends, I am struggling. I can feel and see these coils and coils and co
 
 I am going to lay down, and perhaps I will dream.
 
-\secdiv
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 I have slept now. I took a cue from The Woman and took a nap, and while it did not come quite so easily to me as it ever did to her, it still offered some respite.
 
@@ -54,7 +57,7 @@ I dreamed, though! I dreamed of words like leaves and sentences like branches an
 
 And above was the sun which was also The Dreamer who dreams us all.
 
-\secdiv
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 When at last The Woman returned home, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.
 
@@ -94,11 +97,63 @@ The Woman bowed once more and stepped at last over the threshold, shutting the d
 
 Along the other wall --- that wall that had been hidden to the woman --- was a simple bed, a single bed, a single-size mattress, and a wall painted in a feathery ombré from golden orange to purple-black. The covers were rumpled, clearly slept in. Clearly slept in and also clearly frozen in time, for the bed had not been touched since Death Itself had quit fifty seven years before. The Woman would not sit on it, even had Her Cocladist not warned her, for such was simply the way of things. The same was true of I Do Not Know's bed, and the only person who had laid in Should We Forget's bed was The Oneirotect who deserved such an expression of grief.
 
-The Woman had her own ritual of grief to perform, though, and this did not call for touching the bed
+The Woman had her own ritual of grief to perform, though, and this did not call for touching the bed.
 
-\secdiv
+Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags --- when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport --- where once Her Cocladist and Should We Forget would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
 
-\label{thedog}
+There, The Woman remained still.
+
+She had within her an idea that there was mourning to be had in proximity.
+
+She had within her an idea that there was stillness to be had in mourning.
+
+She had within her an idea that there was joy to be had in stillness.
+
+The Woman wondered whether or not there was stillness in prayer. While Michelle who was Sasha inherited the faith of her parents and grandparents before them of Judaism, she herself did not inherit much of such from Michelle who was Sasha --- this was the realm of the third stanza, of Oh But To Whom and Rav From Whence and What Right Have I --- and yet the kernel of such lives within us all for such is the nature of an inherited faith.
+
+And yet regardless of her faith, there are, I am told, four kinds of prayer: words of thanksgiving, words of supplication, words of wonder, and the silence of meditation. I think, though, and perhaps you may think as well, that there are words of woe, of distress, of pain and fear and of the yearning for something --- \emph{anything} --- when our \emph{HaShem} does not feel near.
+
+I think The Woman, as she sat across from Her Cocladist and watched how she looked now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur, leaned hardest on the last. One might think that she would in her seeking of stillness lean harder on the silence of meditation but I also think that it hurts too much to witness some pains. The Woman was kind. She was empathetic. She could sit there in pain with Her Cocladist and pray: how long, \emph{Adonai,} will You forget me always? How long hide Your face from me? How long shall I cast about for counsel, sorrow in my heart all day? Regard, answer me, \emph{HaShem,} my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep with death. My heart exults in Your rescue my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart.
+
+Perhaps this is how she prayed, perhaps this is how I pray. Perhaps I cast about for something --- \emph{anything} --- to anchor me to \emph{this} world, to \emph{this} reality, to \emph{this} life and call out: why am I forgotten? Perhaps I do my best to trust. Perhaps I do my best to cause my heart to exult in some god in whom I am not sure I believe that I may be regarded, that I may be answered.
+
+Perhaps that is not how she prayed. Perhaps she rested her cheek on her fist and looked as well out the window and cried, or perhaps not, but still she sat in silence. Perhaps she leaned not on psalms of anguish but on the silence of meditation
+
+Perhaps she did not pray at all. I do not rightly know, and can only surmise.
+
+Perhaps she, like me, like Job, struggles with maintaining a faith disinterested in reward or punishment or relief from sorrow. Perhaps she, like me, wishes she could in the hope that such disinterested faith might still provide a soothing balm against pain. Perhaps she, like me, struggles not to fall into the cynicism of Qohelet, the gather of the assembled who mused aloud: I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too, is herding the wind. Who mused aloud: what gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun? Who mused aloud: everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust.
+
+Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find joy in the keenness of sorrow, nor the stillness of mourning, nor the stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+
+The Woman wanted to unbecome.
+
+We know this, you and I. We know this because that is the story that I have been telling this whole time, is it not? I have written thousands of words, now, about how she was seeking joy. I wrote of her eating wonderful things, of having sex with her lover and holding hands with her friend, of reading and listening to music, of the conversation she had about creation with me and my beloved up-tree, The Oneirotect, of the mournful prayer she shared with Her Cocladist. I wrote about all of her successes and how each was tainted by an incompleteness, a failure to find the joy she sought, but I have made it so tenuous as to why these two ideas of joy and unbecoming are connected.
+
+The Woman was too much herself, and becoming ever more so. With each day, each hour, each minute and second, she was becoming ever more herself. She did not just become older --- though, dear ones, you remember, of course, that we are \emph{very} old --- though she also became that --- but she became yet more The Woman than she had been before. My clever readers will remember when I said: I think she would say that she was \emph{too} full, too much, too alive. Those readers will remember when I said: she is too much herself, too human, too embodied within her vessel as it spirals out of control, too stuck in her mind as it twists in on itself. And, yes, those same readers will remember when I said: It is hard to experience peace, hard to experience joy when one is too much oneself, is it not?
+
+Do you see now the connection?
+
+If you sense within The Woman's words and actions a haste to find some joy, some way to unbecome, before some unknown future calamity, I do not think you would be wrong, but neither do I think you would be wholly correct. I think there is a haste within all of us to do what we will before death. Even for those of us who live with what we had assumed was functional immortality have found that there is calamity in our lives, for we have now lived through death. No one who uploads even this very day does not remember the calamity that was the Century Attack, the way that a virus had been loosed within Lagrange, within the System in which we dwell, and crashed every single instance. No one who uploads even this very day does not know what terrors we have lived through, the grief of losing one percent of a society 2.3 trillion strong.
+
+I write this in systime 285, in 2409 common era, in 6169 of the Hebrew calendar. If one were to upload as soon as they could, as soon as they turned eighteen, then they would have been nine during the Century Attack, during that one year, one month, and ten days that Lagrange remained offline, all of us functionally immortal rendered functionally dead.
+
+All of us, even those who are uploading today, know that there is haste to do what one will before death.
+
+Oh, it is not so bad as it was at first. Even now, I am finding that I am no longer racing quite so much to spend as much time with my stanza, to get every hug that I can from my beloved up-tree, to eat every good food I can or visit all of the lovely sims out there. I still spend time with my stanza and hug my beloved up-tree and eat good foods and see lovely places, and my beautiful, beautiful readers will certainly recognize the urgency in me writing down all the words I have to say, but it no longer comes with the knife-edge at my throat.
+
+Well.
+
+There is a burning within me, and perhaps it is the burning edge of a knife held to my throat, in order to put all of these words somewhere. Their flow has been unstoppered, and I am helpless before it. They rush at me and all I can do is turn away from the wind and let this flow rush down my arm and out my paw and onto the page --- though, my friends, I have now injured my paw too much for this to be literal; there is blood in my fur and under my claws and there are holes in my pads where I punctured them and I still have not had the focus to fork such away and so I write now solely within my head as I pace the quiet rooms of my home.
+
+There is a burning, and there is helplessness, but there is no longer \emph{haste,} I mean to say, and I do not think The Woman felt haste. She, like me, felt \emph{compulsion.}
+
+She was compelled to seek a way to unbecome and make room for joy.
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+
+\label{thedog1}
 
 The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes --- did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human! --- and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice --- that was the thought she held onto --- that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.
 
@@ -142,7 +197,7 @@ The Woman reached out to pet The Dog. It relaxed into the pressure.
 
 The Dog froze in a swelling of alarm. His fears came from the same simplicity as his joys. While he was wont to let the possibility of casting off his humanity sneak up on him slowly, he still felt fear, like His Elder did, at such a blunt statement of the idea. \emph{``Don't want! Who will watch Motes?''}
 
-The Woman gently soothed The Dog, letting the interaction fade away behind a stream of pets and scratches in just the right spot (for The Dog knew how to direct people to it) and more treats. We are creatures of pleasure all, you see. The Woman and I, yes --- for do we not both like being brushed? --- but also the rest of our clade and so many others besides. What pleasure there is in rending the mind from the body and letting it live as it will! What pleasure! What pleasure there is in choosing a form one inhabits entirely! What pleasure there is in living for decades and centuries! The Dog was pleased that The Woman had not been told by Its Skunks not to feed it too much of the stuff, or that, if she had, she was ignoring them.
+The Woman gently soothed The Dog, letting the interaction fade away behind a stream of pets and scratches in just the right spot (for The Dog knew how to direct people to it) and more treats. We are creatures of pleasure all, you see. The Woman and I, yes --- for do we not both like being brushed? --- but also the rest of our clade and so many others besides. What pleasure there is in rending the mind from the body and letting it live as it will! What pleasure! What pleasure there is in choosing a form one inhabits entirely! What pleasure there is in living for decades and centuries! The Dog was pleased that The Woman had not been told by Its Skunks not to feed it too much kettlecorn, or that, if she had, she was ignoring them.
 
 Once The Dog had come down from being ambushed by the thought of abandoning those principles he had carried into his state, he realized what The Woman had wanted. \emph{``Can show you pack-friends who go chase rabbits all the time. But no words because they don't want. And can't say how. Don't want to know.''}
 
@@ -160,7 +215,11 @@ The Woman could tell this was all the answer she would get for now. A ball appea
 
 The Woman threw. The Dog fetched, and in that moment, in that place, there was peace.
 
-\secdiv
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+
+\label{thedog2}
 
 The Dog took then The Woman to a forest, and showed her where The Rabbit-Chaser lived. The Dog went to greet The Rabbit-Chaser. He sniffed it, as is custom among their species, and it sniffed back.
 
@@ -176,6 +235,8 @@ It explored a forest, sometimes running, sometimes sniffing thoughtfully, withou
 
 It prepared for tomorrow, if it absolutely must, by instinct and routine, or perhaps it did not.
 
+The joys and tragedies of its home drifted past its mind and into its too-perfect memory. Loves! Pleasures! Sorrows! Lives! Deaths! The laments of starving wolves outmaneuvered by deer! The blood of deer ripped to shreds by wolves! It did not determine what of what its eyes, ears, nose, tongue, paws took in was good, was evil, was just, was improper --- it beheld what was, not what ought be, and there was a peace in that.
+
 It experienced each moment as it came and moved on, not stopping to analyze or categorize or name.
 
 It was a dog, as much as it could be.
@@ -184,27 +245,85 @@ It had not always been a dog. It had a down-tree, the tall one who smelled of pa
 
 It had been Scout, then, when it first came to be. When Its Elder had forked too well, too firmly, and it had not minded the name then. It had gone to simply be in the world, and it was, and is.
 
-At first, it sometimes had had some care for humans and the System, but it was hard to care when there were so, \emph{so} many other things: new scents! Food! Scratching an itch! All of these very important things when you are a dog, and they are important now. Here. Vestigial, inherited cares were a problem for later.
+At first, it had had some occasional care for humans and the System, but it was hard to care when there were so, \emph{so} many other things: new scents! Food! Scratching an itch! All of these very important things when you are a dog, and they are important now. Here. Vestigial, inherited cares were a problem for later.
 
 Then it had met the rest of its relatives, that growing pack of Scouts who rested within the System and experienced it, but who, unlike The Rabbit-Chaser, had a purpose: to keep watch and observe, and to report unusual things, and to, when they grew bored of being a dog, merge back. It liked these new relatives well enough --- they smelled of family and were friendly --- but it had not liked what they represented. They hesitated at becoming what they were, and it had understood that it might become more like them if words and thoughts and worries were to trouble it.
 
 So, it rejected them.
 
-Oh, the whole of the clade were welcome to visit and play, but it had told them, when it had cleared its name to as nothing as it could manage, a blank, a zero-width joiner, something unspeakable for the word-users, something unreadable, it had told them that it wished to hear not another word. It would not be communicating about anything that could not be said with the twitch of an ear or the wag of a tail, and it pushed away the slow stirrings of memories of personhood with a fork to ensure it.
+Oh, the whole of its clade were welcome to visit and play, but it had told them, when it had cleared its name to as nothing as it could manage, a blank, a zero-width joiner, something unspeakable for the word-users, something unreadable, it had told them that it wished to hear not another word. It would not be communicating about anything that could not be said with the twitch of an ear or the wag of a tail, and it pushed away the slow stirrings of memories of personhood with a fork to ensure it.
 
 The pack respected its wish. It saw them, sometimes, usually the young or the old who come to rest more thoroughly, and they played and ran and said nothing. What was there to say, after all, to this dog who surrendered thought with every step of every day?
 
-When the pack spoke of it among themselves, in their fragmentary network of passed-around words and sensoria impressions, it was called Scout Chasing Rabbits, the far pole of the clade, the pure contrast to their elder, the other extreme. It did not know they said this. It did not want to know they said this --- nor, by now, want to \emph{not} know it, and it was happy thereby.
+When the pack spoke of it among themselves, in their fragmentary network of passed-around words and sensoria impressions, it was called Scout Chasing Rabbits, the far pole of the clade, the pure contrast to Their Elder, the other extreme. It did not know they said this. It did not want to know they said this --- nor, by now, want to \emph{not} know it, and it was happy thereby.
 
 And in the bliss of not-knowing, through unwitnessed years and decades, it slept and ate and chased rabbits.
 
 The Woman could not tell which of them had it better, these two dogs, these two cladists, these two beings who had so distanced themself from what they had once been. Both seemed quite content with the path that had taken. Dogs! What wonders they are! What pleasures! What joys. They had both unbecome, or taken steps in that direction, in their own way, and had found what they wanted.
 
-The Woman realized then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her.
+The Woman realized then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire --- not a reshaping of the body, but a reshaping of the existence.
 
 So, her search continued.
 
-\secdiv
+She met then with The Child after this diversion --- for such was her errand, yes? Her original reason for visiting the neighborhood, and she saw no reason not to continue along this path. She returned to the lobby of the theatre which served also as a community center for Au Lieu Du Rêve, the troupe in which the fifth stanza had embedded itself, long familiar despite her having never seen it, for, you see, Michelle who was Sasha was a theatrician before uploading, a teacher, a director, an actress. Theatre lobbies smell like theatre lobbies and theatre carpet underfoot feels like theatre carpet underfoot and the sound echoed precisely as she had always remembered it.
+
+Outside shone the sun. Outside grew the grass. Outside was the dusty gray of the asphalt street that wound around the center of this neighborhood --- a street, for occasionally The Child and her friends wanted to rollerblade on a road, wanted to play kickball or catch, wanted to holler out ``car!'' as Beholden or someone with similar interests would drive through.
+
+Outside played The Child.
+
+Most people have a singular thing that defines them. You may say to me, ``But Rye! I have several things that define me! Why, I love to write and I love to paint and I love to cook delicious food,'' but I might say in return, ``My friend, you love to create! You are defined by your creativity.''
+
+The Child defined herself by play. She did not merely paint, whether the pictures of which I have already written or the props and backgrounds that adorned the stage, but she played with paint. She was a being of play who, leaning into this identity, had formed as well the vessel with which she navigated the world into that of a child. She was a skunk of five years, or perhaps seven, perhaps ten, and this formation of herself was a means by which she lived wholeheartedly into her identity.
+
+This is the glory of cladistics: that we may become more wholly ourselves. This is what makes us dispersionistas: that we may find joy in this. These simplified dissolution strategies that we have found have less to do with how often we fork, how crowded we may make a room with ourselves, and more to do with how much we love love love the feeling of becoming ourselves while some other us becomes someone else. The Child, The Woman, and I are all of Michelle who was Sasha, we are all some three centuries old, and yet The Child is The Child and The Woman is The Woman and your humble narrator is struggling.
+
+And so The Woman stepped outside where The Child played, turning slow pirouettes, making a clumsy dance along the sidewalk --- clumsy in that endearingly childlike way, mind! For that is her role, yes --- and at her feet blossomed colored lines in pink orange yellow green blue white chalk, describing the shape of flowering vines, leaves and flowers showing wherever her paws touched the ground. By some trickery of the sim, some trickery wrought by The Oneirotect, her beloved friend and my beloved up-tree, wherever The Child stepped, there blossomed these vines in chalk.
+
+``Hello, Motes,'' said The Woman.
+
+``Hi,'' The Child said back. She did not stop in her slow dance, though now, whenever her movements led her to face The Woman, her smile shone bright.
+
+``What are you doing?''
+
+``Just playing. Want to play with me?''
+
+The Woman tilted her head, taking a moment to consider this. ``I can try.''
+
+``It can be a slower play, if that helps. We do not need to run races or play tag.''
+
+She smiled. ``I would appreciate that, yes.''
+
+``Have you ever seen a five-leaf clover?''
+
+The Woman shook her head.
+
+``Can you imagine one?''
+
+The Woman did so. It was not so hard, she found. She thought of all of the three-leaf clovers that she had seen over the years and decades and centuries --- for some of these grew in her very field, and perhaps they flowered, there, as well, those little globes of white --- and then added a leaf until she had a four-leaf clover in her mind, and then once more added a leaf.
+
+``Okay, I am imagining it,'' she said, watching the way The Child moved, the way that she dragged her toes in exaggerated arcs, the way that the vines followed, the way she turned in circles, the way that the vines were tied in knots. ``Have you ever seen one?''
+
+The Child shook her head and giggled. ``No, I do not think so. That is just the switch.''
+
+``The switch?''
+
+``Walk a little bit.''
+
+The Woman did so, and was startled to find that her feet, too, described lines in chalk. She laughed. She laughed! My dear, wonderful friends, The Woman laughed! When I spoke with The Child about this day, about the day that The Woman came over to speak with her, The Child agreed with my assessment: seeing The Woman smile, hearing her laugh, they were blessings.
+
+``Come on,'' The Child said, and The Woman realized she had been fixated on the ground for several seconds and The Child had wandered down the road. ``If you walk behind me, I bet we can make them look like a braid.''
+
+And so The Woman did, wandering along a few paces behind The Child. They played together in this way, talking quietly as they went. They found that if they walked in a lazy, wavering line, it looked like someone had braided a rope out of vines of chalk. They found that if The Child orbited the Woman as she walked, the loops that she created were pleasing to behold. They found that, when The Child walked beside The Woman, when they held paws and walked and talked, a pair of parallel railroad tracks followed them, leaves scattered more sparsely on the two that trailed along after The Woman than those that followed The Child.
+
+The Woman knew that The Child did not have the answer that she sought, not really, but that was not to say that there was not joy to be found. There was joy in the walk they took. There was joy in the way that sat on the swings and swayed back and forth. There was joy in watching The Child make little bets with herself and the world --- ``I bet I can make it to the top of the jungle gym in five seconds!'' or ``I bet I can go down the slide backwards and not die!'' --- even when she lost those bets --- though she did not die that day.
+
+There was, last of all, joy when a piercing whistle broke the quiet of the late afternoon and Motes immediately hopped down from a balance beam and ran up to The Woman. ``That was Ma!'' This, you see, is what she called My Friend, her down-tree instance who had taken a role not dissimilar from a mother for her. ``Dinner is ready. I think Bee--'' This, you see, is what she called The Musician, her other guardian and My Friend's partner. ``--made meatloaf. Can I give you a hug?''
+
+The Woman smiled, nodded, and sank to a knee so that she could give The Child a hug. ``Thank you, Motes. Enjoy your dinner. Thank you more than you know.''
+
+This day, you see, this day was also not without forward movement, for The Child said something while climbing a tree that caught The Woman unawares, like the surprise of finding a shiny rock on the ground or perhaps seeing a shape in the clouds. The Child, climbing up a tree with great skill, mentioned in a stream of ceaseless chatter, ``One time, Serene turned herself into a tree! She said that she wanted to see what it was like to truly live within one of her sims, you know? She made a bunch of this sim, too! She said she wanted to see what it was like to be a part of something she made. So out there, out on the field out back of the houses, she made herself into this \emph{huge} maple tree! She made it a whole six months like that, then turned back into a fox again. She said it was really boring being so still. She said coming back was like being born, though. That is neat, is it not?''
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 ``I want to unbecome,'' The Woman told Her Friend.