Epigraph

content/read/054.md

@@ -1,107 +1,155 @@
-# Ioan Bălan --- 2305
+# Sasha --- 2112
 
-Earlier that day, after Serene and Praiseworthy had left, Ioan had thanked Dear earnestly for the opportunity and experience and prepared to leave. Dear had cried and made Ioan promise to come back --- *"your wall will miss you"* --- to which Ioan readily agreed. They shook hands, hesitated, shrugged in unison, and then hugged. The contact felt important. Necessary.
+Pain woke Sasha. Pain and a rumbling, jittery sensation within her body.
 
-Ey would soon, but for now, ey needed some distance from the experience to sit and think and remember and write. 
+The pain coursed through her limbs, seeming to originate from a wellspring at the base of her neck. She remembered a quickly building sense of vertigo, of the whole of her perception growing fuzzy around the edges, and then...nothing. 
 
-No, not remember --- ey couldn't forget. To mix the thoughts around. To understand. To perform as an amanuensis.
+And then this.
 
-Ey moved out to eir favorite Adirondack chair on the deck with pen and paper. Fine, cream-colored paper. Soft, without being fuzzy. A subtle inlay of thicker rows of pulp, leaving faint horizontal lines visible across the page without necessarily leaving it bumpy or ridged. Fine paper and a nice pen.
+She levered her eyes open slowly, carefully, and was greeted by an extreme close-up view of a dandelion. A dandelion. More dandelions. Cartoonishly fat bumblebees --- for what bumbler is not cartoonish? --- coursed among them in lazy Lissajous curves. They all avoided her with the polite patience of bees of all ilk.
 
-Ey spent a minute thinking back on Dear and Qoheleth, spent another savoring the heft of the pen and the texture of the paper, and then began to write.
+"The fuck." The half-formed phrase tumbled out from between what felt like half-formed lips.
 
-Or tried to. The words would not come.
+She carefully picked herself up off the ground, off the field of endless dandelions. The pain coursing through her body was quickly explained as she turned around. It appeared that she had fallen from a tall barstool. There stood before her a row of them lined neatly before a bar. *The* bar. The one so familiar from countless nights and weekends loitering in the Crown Pub.
 
-It was perhaps too fresh to begin properly. Too near to the surface. Not yet emulsified into the story both ey and Dear craved. The ending had essentially been reached, but the story was still just an outline.
+The bar stood alone in the field. No backing wall full of racks of bottles. No walls at all: beyond the bar was more endless field. No floor: the stools sprouted as easily from soil and grass as did the dandelions.
 
-Ey set the paper aside and stood from the chair to lean against the balcony railing of the deck, looking out onto the manicured lawn of the yard, the ring of perpetually blooming lilacs that served as a fence.
+Dandelions.
 
-Looked, but did not see, for ey was focused inwards. Focused on story and memory. And then ey was focused on composing a short sensorium message to Dear, requesting a half-duplex meeting.
+That warm smell of fresh-baked muffins hung thick in the air. The warm air. The warm sun. The warm sky. The warm earth.
 
-Unsurprisingly, the response was nearly instantaneous. *"Ioan. I did not expect to hear from you so soon."*
+She rubbed at the back of her neck to ease the pain, then quickly pulled her hand away as though burnt.
 
-"Right. I know that I promised I needed some space from the story but I was wondering if--"
+Hand.
 
-*"Yes, of course!"* The fox was grinning wide, ears at full attention. *"Sorry, continue."*
+Paw.
 
-Ioan laughed. "Well, I think you answered it already, but I was wondering if I could send a fork to work in the room you offered. It was a wonderful place to write, and that would give me easy access to you for clarifications and whatnot."
+Hand.
 
-*"As I had guessed. The answer is still yes, then. Shall we expect you for dinner while you stay with us? Please say yes."*
+Paw.
 
-"Of course, Dear. I'll gather a few things and then head over momentarily."
+Her body could not seem to make up its mind. Just as the fall seemed to explain the jolts of pain, the quaking in her body seemed to come from the way her form wobbled between states. Waves of skunk-fur/waves of human skin washed across her, gentle stripes moving through the base of human skin/through the base of skunk fur.
 
-The fox appeared to bounce on its feet as it clapped its paws before itself. *"Wonderful. We will see you soon."*
+She screamed.
 
-The few things Ioan needed to gather turned out to be a duplicate of eir nice pen and the few notes ey had made already. It would be easy enough to acquire anything else that ey needed once ey was there, and just as easy to come back to visit this house.
+She screamed and the scream wobbled through different registers with an unnerving electric intensity that set her teeth on edge and made her fur bristle/made her skin crawl.
 
-A pen, a few notes, and a new name.
+The scream did not echo.
 
-Ey explained eir goals to Ioan#Tracker. Ey frowned, but agreed, requesting a merger beforehand. 
+What vasty nothing must produce such anechoic bliss! The silence hurt her ears, deafened her.
 
-\#c1494bf was startled by a pang of jealousy. The experience had felt so hard-won, more so than most of eir experiences. To leave #Tracker burdened with it while ey went off to have further experiences felt like an intrusion. To create a long-lived fork was a new thing, though, and ey supposed there would be many discussions on it to come.
+The scream cut short, she stumbled, ran, stumbled again, and kept running. Did not know where she ran. Did not care where she ran. Picked a direction and sprinted. Hoarse breathing echoed within her ears, for where else would it echo?
 
-Ey forked into #0224ebe8, a signifier that felt somehow familiar, and then #c1494bf quit, letting #Tracker handle the merge. Eir frown deepened, and the two agreed that they would talk about it in the future.
+Hazardous glances back marked her distance by the shrinking of the lone bar, standing awkwardly amid flowers.
 
-The new fork bowed, then headed to that delightfully modern house on the prairie.
+*And I ran.* Words coursed absurdly through her head. Coursed and squirmed, slick to the touch. *I ran so far away.* Words and music. Notes falling upon her from on high. Words welling up from somewhere deep within her gut.
 
-Dear and its partner were already waiting on the path leading up to the door. The fox looked like it had calmed down somewhat, that grin tempered into a smile. Its partner looked pleased as well. "Ioan, good to see you so soon."
+She looked back, saw the bar dwindle, and when she turned around once more, skidded to a halt. For there was the bar again. Obstinately proving its presence through albedo and shadow and solidity. Looked behind her again and saw only empty field.
 
-Ey bowed to the two, then reached out to shake each of their hands. "Apologies, but you can call me Codrin Bălan."
+Screamed again.
 
-Any sense of calmness that Dear had managed to acquire was quickly lost. The grin returned, its tail whipped about behind it, and, in perhaps the strangest display of excitement that Codrin had ever seen, it forked several times over, copies of the fox --- of the fox, of what Codrin supposed must be non-anthropomorphized fennecs, of Michelle --- briefly littering the path before quitting.
+Deafened again, fell silent.
 
-Codrin laughed.
+Reached behind her for that cool draft against her neck, tried to pull back.
 
-*"A change of name is cause for celebration! Come! Come inside and tell us about it."*
+There was no draft.
 
-Once inside Dear's gallery, ey began, "This little...what, adventure? This adventure has been lousy with names. Your whole clade has a unique approach to them."
+There was no pulling back.
 
-Dear nodded. *"Names are important. They put a label on things, sure, but much more than that. Names give voice to identity. A chosen name doubly so."*
+That pain, then: not the shock of falling from the stool, but the shock of sudden disconnection.
 
-"I was 'Ioan' before I uploaded. I suppose a great many trackers keep their names. Despite the masculinity implied by it and my own fluidity, I was rather attached to it. I liked being 'Ioan'. It was my identity."
+Fell to her knees and scrambled toward the bar on all fours, huddling against it and staring wide-eyed at the endless plain of dandelions. Heard her breath echo against the wood of the bar. Turned to face it and screamed deliberately, letting the subtle echo of acknowledgement, the presence of something solid, wash over her. Relished it. Screamed obscenities. Cursed the world. Cursed the powers that sent her to this place. Lost. Lost. Lost.
 
-*"And 'Codrin'?"*
+She could not control her thoughts. The world came at her too fast. An intrasaccadic smear of a world. A gesture at reality.
 
-Ey regarded the painting of the black square. It no longer felt quite so unnerving. "From 'codru'. Forest. The idea of clades inspired me."
+It was days/years/minutes until she was able to calm herself once more. The sun set/never set. The air temperature swung wildly to cold at night/was an unchanging warm that would not permit the passage of time.
 
-*"Does it come with a change of identity, then?"*
+Her mind wandered far.
 
-"Perhaps."
+Days passed.
 
-Dear turned to face em, regarded em pleasantly. *"I promised you at the beginning of this that I would discuss your* Umwelt *with you."*
+Or not.
 
-Codrin nodded.
+She plucked at a dandelion at some point, breathed in the fresh-baked scent of it. Let it fall to the ground.
 
-*"It is an idea from the field of semiotics. It originally applied to the biological side of it. It was the idea that different species living in the same environment would, by necessity, create meaning for themselves in different ways. It was then generalized to the idea that individuals within the same environment would still create meaning in different ways. You and I looking at a painting will experience different feelings and thoughts."*
+She levered herself up onto the stool once more and cheerfully ordered herself a drink from no one. She clawed/scratched at the bar's stained and varnished surface, sobbing. Tears left tracks in fur/slid from her cheeks to the bar top.
 
-It prodded at Codrin's arm, then at its own. *"Of course, we only have a gesture at biology in the system, but it is still the case that it is the sum of our parts --- our experiences --- that shape how we create meaning."*
+And always her form shifted and danced. Her tail would sway into being and then it would never have been there. Her skin would sting and prickle from slamming her hand down against the bar and then that skin would be replaced by velvety pads.
 
-"I see. Then yes, I had a set of experiences that led to a change of how I create meaning."
+She came to at some point/calmed down enough to think/let her breath slow enough that she was no longer sobbing.
 
-The fox's ears bobbed as it nodded. *"So it is no surprise that you might feel a shift in your identity. The Ioan that finished the experience was no longer the same Ioan that started it. Ey was a Codrin now."*
+Days passed.
 
-"Precisely. It was strange," ey mused. "When #Tracker-- when Ioan asked that I merge, I felt a bit of jealousy, and I wasn't quite sure why. Despite all of the other projects that I've approached with a fork leading to no such feelings, something about this one made it feel like a stranger was asking me to give up something intimate."
+Perhaps.
 
-Dear laughed. *"The very thing that keeps me from being anything other than a dispersionista. Jealousy is a sign of needs not met, and one of my needs --- one of the clade's needs --- is that of ownership over memory. I would be furious if Praiseworthy asked me to merge with her."*
+*If this is a dream and I know it, do I not have control? Can I not make my reality for me?*
 
-Ey grinned and nodded.
+She breathed in to the count of four, held for the count of two, and then breathed herself out on a breath. There, beside her on the next stool, sat her human form/sat her skunk form. Her mind was split. Shared between the two. Neither could move without the other moving. Unison did not describe the perfection of the match.
 
-*"Perhaps you have a bit of dispersionista in you, then."*
+But at least she was no longer out of focus.
 
-"I suppose I must. You Odists seem to have infected me with the need to own memory." Ey sighed. "I don't know if it will stick, and perhaps once I'm done, I will head back and merge with Ioan. I don't know."
+*Was this what the lost were going through?* She brushed her hand/paw through her hair/over her ears. *Or perhaps it is merely a furry thing, primed as we are to have an internal representation so different from our external? Perhaps it is a me thing? Perhaps all are unique.*
 
-*"You are welcome to stay here while you figure that out, and as long after as you would like."*
+"Oh AwDae," she moaned. "Oh fox. How long have you been suffering?"
 
-"You're sure? You and your partner won't mind?"
+Days passed.
 
-It shook its head. *"Of course not. I am sure we all have our own privacy needs that will require discussion, but we like you, Codrin. Trauma, if trauma this is, forges bonds. I think we are both open to strengthening this one."*
+The sun rose and set with a frightening hum/utter tranquility.
 
-There was a comfortable silence, then, as the two digested the conversation.
+She stood/she stood.
 
-It was Codrin who spoke up next. "What do you make of it?"
+Poetry coursed through her, half remembered/perfectly memorized lines from productions long past. Lines from school, from work. "Since then --- 'tis centuries --- and yet feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horse's heads were toward eternity ---"
 
-*"Of what? Of the goings on?"*
+It *had* been centuries for her, and yet each felt shorter than the crash to the ground from out of the perilous heights of the embodied world. *Time feels so vast that were it not For an Eternity...*
 
-"No, of the painting," ey said, nodding toward the canvas. The prairie and the ultrablack square.
+Time, which beat against the skies. Time, which hemmed her in. Time, which forced words from her mouth/from her muzzle in breathless haste/unwavering slowness. *I fear me this Circumference Engross my Finity --- To His exclusion who prepare By Process of Size For the Stupendous Vision Of his diameters ---*
 
-*"Haven't a fucking clue."*
+"Oh fox."
+
+She cried again/cried again. Sat on the ground again/sat on the ground again. Plucked a dandelion/plucked a dandelion. Again/again. Always twice over.
+
+"Sasha!" She spoke aloud.
+
+"The fuck." Half question this time.
+
+"Sasha, it's Debarre," she said. Then: "What the fuck?"
+
+"I'm so sorry. I came as fast as I could. Everything's a fucking mess."
+
+"How long has it been?" she asked herself.
+
+"About sixteen hours."
+
+"Hours?" Hours? What meaning held time? She had lived her whole life --- several such --- on this tiny world.
+
+"Yeah. I had to dump a chunk of my savings into a ticket to get here."
+
+She clawed at the ground in something between frustration and terror that a friend's voice was coming from her mouth/from her muzzle. "And...how are you..."
+
+"A mirror rig." The joyous tone of the words clashed against the tears still flowing freely. "We figured it out. Carter figured it out, I mean. She and AwDae busted everything open. Figured out how to rescue the lost, figured out how everyone *gets* lost in the first place."
+
+She stopped digging at the earth. "AwDae's back?"
+
+"Yes! And the clinic where Cicero is is trying to get him out as well!"
+
+She had to turn toward the bar again to let the shouting echo. The silence was giving her a headache.
+
+Or not. A neck-ache. Something was tearing at the back of the neck/through the fur of her scruff. An ache. A jolt of pain. A ripping. A tearing.
+
+"I'm going to stop mirroring now. This is horrifying," she said to the wood of the bar. She did not know who said the last, Debarre or herself. Was there a difference?
+
+And then, a hand on her shoulder. One of her shoulders. The sensation made her hair/fur stand on end. She turned around, and there was Debarre. Or so she guessed. The grey, default avatar. The figure frowned as he looked between the two of her. Looked at Michelle/looked at Sasha.
+
+"I...what? Sasha?"
+
+She gritted her teeth/bared her teeth. "I do not know either. What to we do now? How do we get out of this...place?"
+
+The shape that promised it was Debarre shrugged. "Can you back out?"
+
+She reached. Felt the draft. Smiled beatifically. She passed the field of dandelions. Passed the setting sun, or perhaps he passed her.
+
+And breathed in the cool air of an implant clinic.
+
+There, beside her, also sitting up from the recliner and pulling off his headband, was, she supposed, Debarre. Short. Soft. Thinning hair. Ecstatic grin.
+
+"Sasha?" The grin picked up an ironic twist. "Or Michelle, I guess. You okay?"