Epigraph

content/read/055.md

@@ -1,35 +1,107 @@
-# Sasha --- 2113
+# Ioan Bălan --- 2305
 
-"To get lost is to go mad," Sasha spoke to the small crowd that had gathered in the Crown Pub. Read, actually, for she had written the speech to give --- as Michelle Hadje rather than Sasha --- at a gathering not too dissimilar from this one earlier in the day. A digital ceremony to follow the analog. "It is perhaps indelicate to say, but it is true. To get lost is to go mad.
+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.
 
-"I think that this applies to more than just the sense that it has come to mean here and now. I think that if you go for a walk in a strange city and get lost, there is some aspect of that which is similar to madness. You walk the strange streets and see the strange people and strange buildings, and eventually, it all seems to blur together and your thoughts wander. They wander beyond the limits of your body and your mind. They soar above the city and try to make sense of these unknown, shifting shapes. They try to draw sensible paths from the turns you took. I turned left there, did I not? Or did I?"
+Ey would soon, but for now, ey needed some distance from the experience to sit and think and remember and write. 
 
-The sombre group of diverse species was mostly looking at her. Animals of all shapes, anthropomorphism of all levels. Even some humans, for there was Carter, looking much as she had at that first ceremony.
+No, not remember --- ey couldn't forget. To mix the thoughts around. To understand. To perform as an amanuensis.
 
-And some looked down. AwDae looked at her, keen-eyed. Debarre looked down, shaking with sobs.
+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.
 
-"And to get lost in today's sense feels much the same. Your mind flies to strange places and dreams with all the logic of dreams. Only in there, when your mind dreams, so too does reality. If, that is, the word 'reality' has any meaning in this case.
+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.
 
-"And you go mad. You go mad and you try to control the dreams. You try to control them and you fail, because in the end, lucid as you may be, it is the dream which has *you*, and not the other way around. You do what you can, but you go mad. Your mind is flooded with words. They fly at you like poetry, spill from your mouth or your hands in unceasing torrents. It changes how you speak, how you act, how you create and move within the world.
+Or tried to. The words would not come.
 
-"And there along with you is all that was stored in your exocortex. All of that data, useful and useless, is in there with you. You can keep it for your very own, browse it at will, build it up into castles as tall as you like.
+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.
 
-"We are gathered tonight to remember Cicero. We are gathered because to get lost is to go mad, and now, even a year later, that madness clings to the lost like some horrid stench, hangs from us like bloated ticks. Perhaps it will fade over time, and perhaps not, but for Cicero, as with so many others, the lingering madness grew to be too much, overcame him like a wave, and the undertow took him from us."
+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.
 
-Debarre moaned, tried to stifle his grief with his paws.
+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.
 
-Sasha's own voice creaked as she went on. "But, even as the madness worked its awful magics on him, he gave back what he could. In his time in there, in that horrible forever, he prowled through the data left in his exo. Many of us did, each in our own way, but he had the advantage of being one of the first. He had the advantage of having the much needed information that drew attention to those responsible for the terror we all lived through, some of us directly and many, many more of you indirectly.
+Unsurprisingly, the response was nearly instantaneous. *"Ioan. I did not expect to hear from you so soon."*
 
-"I feel that madness still. Many of the lost do, perhaps all." She saw AwDae nod at this. "We owe it to Cicero and his memory to repair as best we can. To use what he gave us to help build ourselves up better than before. To, in his name, live fuller lives having known him. We owe it to him to remember him as that oh-so-intense cat with a penchant for politics. We owe it to him to remember the whole of him in all ways.
+"Right. I know that I promised I needed some space from the story but I was wondering if--"
 
-"And we owe it to ourselves tonight to remember the best of him. Let us delight in each other, rejoice together."
+*"Yes, of course!"* The fox was grinning wide, ears at full attention. *"Sorry, continue."*
 
-She raised a glass. "To Cicero."
+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."
 
-The crowd echoed, intent, shaky but one hundred percent present in the moment. "To Cicero"
+*"As I had guessed. The answer is still yes, then. Shall we expect you for dinner while you stay with us? Please say yes."*
 
-The rest of the evening was quiet, subdued. Sasha and AwDae sat with Debarre, each to one side. They supported the weasel as he cried. Cried over his twice lost partner, cried over the cruel vagaries of family which had kept him from attending the day's first funeral. They supported him with silence and listening.
+"Of course, Dear. I'll gather a few things and then head over momentarily."
 
-And when he had cried himself out and was willing to admit something other than mourning into the night, then they rejoiced together.
+The fox appeared to bounce on its feet as it clapped its paws before itself. *"Wonderful. We will see you soon."*
 
-And if Sasha and AwDae were in some way distant, in some way not wholly there, Debarre either ignored it for forgave them their madness.
+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.
+
+A pen, a few notes, and a new name.
+
+Ey explained eir goals to Ioan#Tracker. Ey frowned, but agreed, requesting a merger beforehand. 
+
+\#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.
+
+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.
+
+The new fork bowed, then headed to that delightfully modern house on the prairie.
+
+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."
+
+Ey bowed to the two, then reached out to shake each of their hands. "Apologies, but you can call me Codrin Bălan."
+
+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.
+
+Codrin laughed.
+
+*"A change of name is cause for celebration! Come! Come inside and tell us about it."*
+
+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."
+
+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."*
+
+"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."
+
+*"And 'Codrin'?"*
+
+Ey regarded the painting of the black square. It no longer felt quite so unnerving. "From 'codru'. Forest. The idea of clades inspired me."
+
+*"Does it come with a change of identity, then?"*
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+Dear turned to face em, regarded em pleasantly. *"I promised you at the beginning of this that I would discuss your* Umwelt *with you."*
+
+Codrin nodded.
+
+*"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."*
+
+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."*
+
+"I see. Then yes, I had a set of experiences that led to a change of how I create meaning."
+
+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."*
+
+"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."
+
+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."*
+
+Ey grinned and nodded.
+
+*"Perhaps you have a bit of dispersionista in you, then."*
+
+"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."
+
+*"You are welcome to stay here while you figure that out, and as long after as you would like."*
+
+"You're sure? You and your partner won't mind?"
+
+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."*
+
+There was a comfortable silence, then, as the two digested the conversation.
+
+It was Codrin who spoke up next. "What do you make of it?"
+
+*"Of what? Of the goings on?"*
+
+"No, of the painting," ey said, nodding toward the canvas. The prairie and the ultrablack square.
+
+*"Haven't a fucking clue."*