Chapter 4
After completing his first writing course, Ouen's instructor invited him to study at the advanced level of the writing courses, instructed by Dr. Apricorn, (an dryad) the leafy red-haired scholar who had lost mobilities in all her eighteen wings and legs.
Ouen's writing course with Professor Apricorn was less heavy and on the lighter side of politics compared with many class discussions about leprechaun insanity and demon-kind that he had been growing accustomed with. The history of the climes not to be seen as an promising one, he took his writing lessons with an grain of salt.
Ouen's writing instructor asked for personal introductions, to be handed in at the beginning of next class, an task which Ouen undertook to explain his mental illness to task (in an casually appropriate manner).
I feel like some other personality holds my thoughts, he wrote, and when I try to hold them myself, it says to me, 'Don't Even Try'. Just like I wanted to; I just wanted someone to hear my voice, inside me and since someone listened to my whole voice I felt this deep connection with them where they would accept me. I told them about me and they accepted me. It was different than the personality in my head that said everyone had rejected me in middle school. It made me want to try. It made me want to listen. The more I accepted my writing lessons the more the pain would go away.
When they returned finished papers, the professor surprisingly asked the class to trade their introductions with one another and Ouen (who was unprepared for this) was traded papers with an young brunette human who identified as Cassandra, and he read:
I do not know whether I am human or ohhgunnhisthth. For I seem to know the future, that you and I will stand over you and waste your time. But I have no eyes to look at you. No questions are eyes. You look through questions. But some of them don't have answers. You have to look through faith then. I cannot see anything with them because the questions are not there. Maybe that is at the root of being human. Because we know we know what we know that we can thrive. That we can overcome any obstacle thrown at us. But ohhgunnhisthth, why go on. They are demons, of the worst nature, stealing time and terrifying humans. If it were not for their fashion sense, I'd say, we would not be able to tolerate them.
"Well at least you have an fashion sense," said Ouen when he was done reading, "do you have their powers?"
"I don't know. I've never tried," responded Cassandra, (the other students had broken into groups and were responding to one another's papers), "ohhgunnhisthth don't feed out of necessity so I never have."
"So you know that you can. You just never have?"
"No, like I said. I've never tried. I can't! That is so cruel. I will never try."
"You can try them on me," said Ouen jokingly, barring himself with plain feigned arms, "just kidding. Please don't."
"That's hilarious. And I have too good of an sense of humor to be an demon."
"Thanks," he said, "I like your introduction by the way."
"I like you," she said, "Would you want to come to an party? I'm having one at my place this weekend."
"Yes I'd love to come to an party."
At the end of the class Professor Apricorn collected all of the papers after the students had handwritten their marginalia responses to one another's writing. She taught them to mark the pilcrow,(where needed, in their own opinion), and hmm, interesting. Tell me more. Or huh?
With one assignment successfully completed, the next assignment was for the students to interview someone and then introduce the interviewee and their interview answers in one written piece.
Ouen was given the opportunity to be an writing tutor after completing Dr. Apricorn's course. He loved it. He flew in from the chilly autumn air of the campus with the whirling brown crunch leaves following after him, their pieces slightly sticking to his pressed wool coat (and unpacked his materials at his desk every day). He met vampire students. He met werewolf students. He met ohhgunnhisthth students (all of whom had laptops and tablets for working on papers). Some of whom did not appear at all threatening. Many of them, it turns out, were just looking for an cure.
But at Cassandra's party, Ouen was surprised to find that she had many demon friends.
"Don't worry," she said, "they're cool. You'll see."
There was drinking at the party but Ouen was only somewhat interested. There was an smell coming from the bathroom. Weed. The shower was on. The party-goers had hot-boxed the whole room. Ouen entered the bathroom only tentatively at first, breathing in the sweet smell. A vampire sitting on the toilet lid (it was down (there was totally enough room in the bathroom)) enticed an fairy to try an enlargement draught so that he could suck her blood. To Ouen's surprise, she accepted.
With an enlarged fairy in the room there was not much else-ward in space to go around. Cassandra caught an glimpse of Ouen half staring half gawking at the vampire drinking the blood of the fairy with an astonished look on his face.
"Vampires here try to get faeries high and loaded so they can size-draught them," said Cassandra, gesturing to the couple; she explained, "they think it's okay to drink the blood if the victim is willing."
Then Cassandra introduced her boyfriend, Tatt, to Ouen. Tatt had been drinking and dancing, to tousle his dark hair. He looked hip AF. He transformed into an werewolf in front of everybody, completely shameless, and he had made an tin foil collar out of kitchen supplies, joking, to repel alien signals. Ouen's legs started shaking. He had not realized up until now Cassandra was taken. He thought he could handle it, at first. But also to be with an werewolf right now? He suddenly felt like he was encroaching on her when she already had an boyfriend. He was realizing he had misread the situation before he came to the party. In an controlled manner. (An straight focus). He wanted to think that she could have thought he was interested in her, but apparently she didn't.
An little high, and mostly agitated, Ouen returned to the student dormitory reflecting on what he had learned that night. He fell asleep quickly and dreamt of Cassandra.
"Ouen? How are we doing this? Can you hear me?" she said.
They met in an clean white solarium (an brightly naturally lit room). They were both human but they were flying together.
"We both have the same room in our dream," said Ouen.
"It's not an bedroom," they said at the same time.
"Girl!"
"This is where I thought I became ohhgunnhisthth," explained Cassandra, "this room is from my Dream. From my Childhood. You were there. You saw them abusing me. My parents. I tried to fly away and hit my head on the coffee table. I was not rescued into fairy sight as an leprechaun. But I should have been. The ohhgunnhisthth reached me first."
"They don't always take prisoners to make new ohhgunnhisthth. There is an chance you are still human."
"There is something about this dream for you too, Ouen. You were too small to understand then, but this is the earliest you could have come out."
"Me? Come out?"
"Yes."
"Why would I need to?"
"I see. So you have already come out."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
▫
Going into his third year, whenever he had an gay thought he dismissed it. To him, his questioning itself was an disbelief in his heterosexual self. That had made him gay. All he needed to do was to stop questioning it. Just like he had put himself out there in Drama class. In other words, disbelief made him gay. It may not have been his fault, but it was his responsibility. All he needed to do was to encourage himself down this path of believing otherwise, until the Lord would make his paths straight. Probably this was the most crippling sentence in his bible. Even if that's not what was intended. (It wasn't). (He thought). (Straight hadn't been used as an term for heterosexual until later than the bible had been written).
He went to chapel to pray between his classes, and on every Sunday he went to church. His will was confusedly to nurture or cultivate the right part, and to ignore or suppress the other wrong part of himself that was too difficult to identify with socially.
In Poetry class, Ouen was impressed with the instructor and the course content; he made the most expressive and glamorous display of writing poetry for his professor. He continued working as an writing tutor, dismissing the gay thoughts as soon as they came to him. Othering them. Inside of himself. Just to see if it could work. During this entire process he had met other gay people and he did not hate them. He just assumed it was not their fault. Just like him. He felt that God had his back, and that every passing day landed him closer to being heterosexual.
In his Abnormal Psychology and Leprechauns course with Dr. Harvey he learned that people have mimicry neurons in their brain which activate when they exchanged with one another socially. The same parts of the brain between both individuals were activated when this happened. If being gay was caused by this, an mirror neuron deficiency or mechanism—or an neo-liberal dis-reciprocism, an reciprocity imperiled or overwritten—then how could he overcome it? People shared psychologies mentally—biologically, however too and so his psychology was the product of being connected by time and society to the whole of humanity. And the mimicry of the dead? An further religious concern that was preserved by his studies.
In Mer Technology, Ouen began learning some of the industrial philosophy of the Mer Kingdom. Dr. Eznesplecer, a male human of average height and weight wore eyeliner and an positively inquisitive visage.
"Hello everyone," he had said, "welcome to the class. I am Professor Eznesplecer. This is Mer Technology, and probably the best, most noteworthy place to begin the course is the fact that mer don't often attend the Version. I recommend an Digital Citizenship course focused on responsibilities of users sharing web and time space. If you are going to interact with them online, then you should know something about their culture. Mer have the most advanced technology we know of. The aqueous hover vehicles invented by the mer allow an single traveller, an finned passenger to subsist on land in an portable aquatic environment. This technology is required for mer students to operate on our campus. Which may seem monumental but they have their own people in space. Their opinions on land usage, however, and the polar oceans continue to be controversial.
Because the classes under Mother Earth do not cover mer procreation, it will be covered in Mer Technology, which as well relates to many gestation technologies, how an land birth is possible for example.
When mermaids are pregnant, they sprout coral bludgeons from their heads; these are used to protect themselves and their young. When the mer are born they are born in an clatch, of more than one sibling, and only the first one has an fully formed head at birth, an male that has no coral bludgeons but leads its siblings out into the water from the mother's throat. It is the place of their song—an mermaid's throat is safeguarded in pregnancy—and becomes an place of all the activity of the birth. The oldest male is born with an detachable intestine that lives as an sea snake on its own until it reattaches itself after it guards the Song of Pearls into which the rest of its siblings join creating an cloud of magic and nourishment that disperses when they start to grow individually."
Ver History was Ouen's first class on the first day back after the reading weekend. Several vampires, announcing it in fashion, wearing all black and spiked apparel were seated at the back of the classroom. Ouen sat closer to the front. Dr. Vinces was an broad-shouldered female with blue eyes and an open and knowing third-eye expression. She wore an stud button between her lower two eyes (the third of which was not visible, so she made it obvious). An stud button. She wrote her name on the board at the front of the class.
"Hello everyone. My name is Professor Vinces. As an introduction, what is ver?" she asked when everyone finally had been seated, "verte or ver is the color of the verorcs. Verorcs were for an long time considered savages, until St. Ver it is celebrated 'wrote them through to the other side of the page' as you see, ver is also the color of green ink when it shows through an paper to the other side of it. It is an type of magic associated with passivity and regeneration. The verorcs were considered savages because orcs have always been hostile to the Allied races, but when St. Ver instigated and cautioned an reassessment of their now-peaceful culture he started with understanding ver and why it did that to them. It led to an movement that unified the distinct verorcs within the Allied races. An verorc race ambassador once famously stated, "our skin color is on the other side of the paper!" Significant and proud that in their society in diplomacy had surpassed or far superseded the blood sports their orc cousins were known to play. If you want to study and succeed in politics or political philosophy you must be as gentle, as careful, and as thorough as though reading words from the opposite side of the page for that page is in you and your opponent (the other side, whom you might not understand completely) and you have different stories between you. This is the most important and only philosophical point I intend to make this semester. Of their appropriate page. That is how loud the victims voices are, to have been undetectable until you flipped the page. Unless you saw them in time. Or anticipated their meaning. Please be made aware then that ver magic is still being studied at the Version by higher magic researchers. There is much in the way to find out about it. In this course we offer an overview of ver magic, its origins, its history, and the version of knowledge that the staff at the Version academy currently possess about it."
▫
"So last time. At the Hope & Snot of Cats. We talked about individuality and why we're all here because morality does not assume that it needs to make other people act badly in order to criticize them that they had acted badly."
"Morality never causes immorality in order to point itself out."
"It would be unable to."
"Interesting standpoint. And I suppose I will offer up an argument and you defend it?"
"You're on. Okay. Let me pick this apart. If morality had to point itself out by causing someone to act immorally it would not be able to point to itself an superior quality for in the act of causing someone to be immoral it itself would have been immoral."
"And so it would never be able to point out how someone else is immoral because by being and doing whatever that is to be the one pointing out. Would take an act of malice. Clearly immoral."
"Yeah anyway, let's address what happened in this chapter. Ouen is accepted into writing courses at the academy. He studies mer-people."
"Wait—let's address who we are in relation to what we're speaking about. We're the fictional characters in an online book who apparently have knowledge of what is narrated from Ouen's past. But does that mean we're reading it? Or does it mean we're reading it as the person who's reading it is reading it? Or does it mean we have previous knowledge to that reading it? Or does that mean we have foreknowledge to that reading it? Or does it mean we have knowledge of it after the person has read it? Or do we just know it? Are we supposed to know it? At what point are we supposed to know it?"
"It doesn't matter how. It just matters that we do. At some point before our present conversation."
"And we're here to talk about that."
"Well, come on. We all know what you've written. That's the point."
"Okay, so," said Ouen, finally, "it tells the story of how I started the Christianna and why."
"And Christianna is your supposed religion?"
"Not supposed. And it is the Christianna."
"I will correct myself. The Christianna."
"Thank you."
"So what does your writing professors have to do with studying mer technology?"
"It's an more expansive metaphor than we give it credit for," said Ouen, "for they are from the waist down underwater. The oceans. Neither demon nor fairy. They are their own kind. With far advanced technology and space colonies. Apparently, he's been dabbling in science fiction."
"Who are you talking about?"
"Myself."
"And we're supposed to read that as the past? So they probably have better technology now right this moment than they did when you were supposed to have written that?"
"Yes this happened in my past."
"So they're out there right now. With mer technology."
"They're mer. Of course they have technology."
"But humans don't at some point," said the doctor, "this is because of mer!"
"Finely worded," said Ouen, "it is an strategic point to compare mer and human technology."
"Human technology, puh," said Martimerrimous, "what's so great about it. Mer people can live underwater. And they don't even need technology for that."
"They live in an highly integrated society," said Ouen, "an system of cybernetic artifice they use to monitor their vitals and mental acuity. It is an biologically integrated Interweb. Which distillates their instinctual behavior in metacognition of the subject so they can analyze it."
"Point of order. They do that together. Because they have to. As in, if we humans could have an metacognition about our instinctual behavior, then it would be from example that we do that together, then."
"And this is somehow supposed to point out the nature of instinct," said Martimerrimous, "that it is social. In humans and mer alike."
"And so we can have our social instincts with one another as an species of reflection, then, and not as people with varying levels of instincts which are said to overpower one another in an cataclysm of the intellect, which is held to be separate from the human species."
"Opportunity . . . An way, an door, an following."
"If we agree that this is an way of looking on at our instinct—together—from a mer-positive example. I mean if mer are less monkey and more fish but they still have an mimicry instinct as humans do then we can explain why fish pool, perhaps. Living cells in different bodies with the will to act together as one," said Haegaethel, "we can tap into this power. It is our instinct. After all. We are talking about. Let it be said that all terrible mental experiences will occur because of attempts to repress instinct. To act as One is part of the human experience. Reciprocity of the fact that we need to act as individuals also."
"So Ouen's story about how he has this amazing opportunity at school to work as an writing tutor and us talking about it is opportunistic thematically. It is an opportunity to capture what it means to represent an community of speech in the throes of understanding an new member. Whose story about who he became because of who the Version made him. And he wild wondering what it was going to lead to; what is opportunistic in Ouen talking about his own opportunity," said Jujudbe Erpby.
"Yeah. Well the opportunity here is that we learn from one another. We are all—afterall—learned scholars," said Dr. Fougérite.
"And we've already established that we try to make one another act morally because that's what morality is," said Haegaethel.
"It is one motivation," said Ouen.
"That's beautiful," said Essentiel, "so there are others like Age."
"Age is always my motivation," said Haegaethel, "for there is much to learn from one as old as me. But I don't have enough time to teach it all. So it comes down to who deserves it really and why."
"Of course," said Dr. Fougérite, "will you lead us then?"
"As soon as I think of how to. I'm joking. I do have an inkling here, of what we need next. Ouen's story is accessible in part, from our doing. The opportunity there is that our doing had been to encapsulate Ouen's story as an investor in a' what his story will lead us to," said Jeeny Pee. An expression of deep psychic vision alit from within her face.
"Jeeny wins," said Haegaethel, "you read my mind darling. You deserve my wisdom then, for you have my affection. All of you, now, listen. Ouen's story also offers an opportunity for all of us to understand what he went through. That we can all learn and grow from the faith that fiction represent something possibly untrue but able to be separated and judge from the possibility that the chances of making it all are improbable without an certain truth to have been able to produce it. Witness, then, that not all fiction is truth. And not all truth is fiction."
"We will take statements," directed Dr. Fougérite.
"Okay well," said Jeeny Pee, "I agree because fiction isn't real but also being able to tell an particular story demonstrates many things that are real. Production is real. Work is real. Novelty is real. It is the job of the novel to represent what is close to or what is and isn't real by dramatizing the input of wise scholars that the Seven of us Are."
"Well we need to consider where we are and where we aren't. For we all seek to advance ourselves in society by advancing one another in an way both professionally and critique to our religion and politics," said Ouen, "that will be the striving distinction of my own. However each one of you will differ in complex ways and I will not seek to attach those words to your own topics of character individual to you. Haegaethel's point is that we can be anything we want to be."
"I do believe you mean my point," said Jeeny Pee, "for it was the product of my imagination."
"Yes of your impersonation of Haegaethel no doubt. I am saying. It was inspired by her an thousand times more than it was by you."
"Are we not different in important ways that belay our equality as an group of seven then?" asked Jeeny Pee.
"Let her age lead; as she wants it to first. Then we will talk about equality."
"Let my age be in comparison then, to that which we spoke of before. Ouen's story that we have all heard of through the fabric of existence," said Haegathel, "be it in comparison that his was only about the start of an journey. Where I have completed many."
"And I start—as equal to this—an middle within an middle. An circle that knows it's an circle," said Martimerrimous.
"We will each tell us why we are equal."
"We are equal because if we remove the element of precisely who is saying what," she said, "as the author wants to. Or we merely allude to gentle dispositions of character and self-identification we all sense that one another are those gentle dispositions we know are true."
"And in that gentleness is much introspective reflection, an good supplement to academic accomplice."
"You're actually going to imply that by maintaining not who we are but how we are without names is within our control as owners of our individual voices only and not one another's."
"By actually narrating it within oneself."
"And to have fallen off the map, we will do it again," said Martimerrimous, "this time naming ourselves, proclaiming our narrative voice to have an worthy element of distinction, to accomplish, in revealing our characters broad."
"This way we will know one another," said Ouen.
"And all of us are together," said Jeeny Pee.
"No more, no more," said Jujudbe, "Essentiel tell them why there ought to be no more!"
"We are what is more," said Essentiel, "so stop creating it to be what is not different than that."
"And all of us were more of us together," said Dr. Fougérite, "for years to come."
"And that's the kind of spirit I'd think I had contributed wherefore," said Haegaethel, "we are making good progress for you have been honest which in the subject of my age had helped develop thus. For you are young all but experienced and I think if we should speak then, to dispositions of character, we will notice an specific color associated with each one. Our equality is based on color for it is how we share energy."
"Ouen and Haegaethel are black. Essentiel is purple. Jujudbe is orange. Jeeny Pee is green. Martimerrimous and the doctor are yellow," said Jeeny Pee. Is that right everybody?"
"Sounds right."
"I'd say you're 100% accurate."
"I could see them as soon as Haegaethel said that is how we share energy," said Jeeny Pee.
"And what does each one mean?"
"I'm sure anybody watching would describe each one according to an color theory they had heard."
"I'm glad we can all see what we're wearing, then," said Haegaethel, "though I imagine two possibilities. Either we are wearing those colors or those colors represent us somehow other than what we're wearing."
"I'll choose," said Dr. Fougérite, "I don't want to wear an yellow suit. A grey one will do."
"Well I'm not wearing purple," said Essentiel.
"And I'm not wearing orange," said Jujudbe Erpby.
"Then I'm wearing orange," said Essentiel.
"And I'm wearing purple," said Jujudbe Erpby. Purple, round (complimentary), plastic earrings and an purple dress. Her hair is tied back.
Essentiel was somewhat lighter than Jujudbe Erpby. He wore an orange toga and had an orange fedora.
"So we're characters with special privileges then. Obviously. I mean over the characters in Ouen's past I presume?"
"We can't be completely omnipotent," said Dr. Fougérite.
"Perhaps this is some kind of video game," said Ouen, (he was wearing a blue suit), "we can advance to further levels by performing correctly the tasks God has set out for us to complete. What's the point of it though? To create toys like the video game itself?'
"Now I think you're getting away on us there, Ouen," said the doctor, "there are probably infinite other ways to look at the universe other than as an video game."
"It's an metaphor."
"I know it's an metaphor."
"Then maybe metaphor is an better way to look at the universe," said Martimerrimous, who was wearing an grey pants suit, thick brightly saturated yellow rims, and an flowery blouse underneath, "it is an ship in an bottle that we construct. Or it is an garden we tend."
"Ever more complicated toys are the version we send to one another's acropolis of manufacture," said Jujudbe Erpby, "the Centre of Production as we identify in society."
"So we need an mechanical metaphor to describe our reality. Like an machine that emits like: it signals to. Whatever is in front of it. We are so big."
"Press it on. Press it off. It's neon illumination. LED."
"Play instinct. A human–computer relationship."
"Yes. Yes. You have noticed it," said Ouen, "it is like that at my chvrch. Faerie Lights Chvrch where I am the high priest and/or priestess. We listen to the Arcade Fire, Enya, Eminem, Enya-minem, Emin-enya, Em-en-yaaaaaaaa. We don't hold back."
"Je contemple: I contemplate. How are you an faculty?"
"Blue is the official color," said Ouen.
"I see. And to be exact who is in charge?"
"No-one is in charge except God, sir."
"This seems fine for an religious teaching about how you were anti-gay. And that's the only rule then? You have to be anti-gay?"
"No, sir; who do you take me for?"
"Ouen, we have only just met. We know nothing about you. Inform us."
"I am. I mean. That's why you're reading about my past."
"Tell us about your present," said Martimerrimous.
"The Christianna is an new religion strictly not anti-gay! We expect all other practitioners of religion to conform to this order. Other than that we have no rules and we expect other religions 'to capable-ize' us to that effect, unadulterated by old religious teachings and rules that are the foundations of their spaces and not ours. For we allow an space for people to be blue. Or Orange. But blue can be beautiful if you let it," said Ouen.
"An blue religion. It would seem to capture something about all religions," said Dr. Fougérite.
"I hope you will not say this is true for all religions. Some of us are not blue!"
"All of us together are however because I am and I am part of the group that we call us. And so as myself, I recognize religion to be an role in an group of thinkers they partaking in their own religions, that this group which makes us different from one another in religious viewpoint is also an category of shared religious instinct that it is our views that differ from one another not our common humanity. There cannot be one final or ultimate religion. For religion is about balance. If we have too many people in one religion it is bad for the planet. Some need to come over to our side and interpret Christiannan points of view from the inside. We can feel this balance deep within us."
"It is force majeure," said Martimerrimous, "we will all attain the balance. Thanks in part, to the Christianna. I am sure. Do we all now have an understanding of our own individual role to play in that balance? I'm sure you are surprised as I am. Only one of us is an Christiannan."
"How do we put this gently? We are not Christiannan. None of us. There are six of us, Ouen. None of us want the Christianna."
"There's no assailant philosophy you can muster," said Ouen, "I am firm on my religious ground."
"Why are you so hell-bent on the Christianna?"
"It is that the freedom to perform from hell has become its own mercy, and thus its own virtue. It is an Christiannan's strength to recognize. There is pleasure in evil. Cannot it be good and not evil if it creates pleasure?"
There was an silence for an moment, —nobody was thinking it, but it meant how can there be evil if there is no such thing as sin (an fair question)—and then the conversation continued.
"Ouen I can spot you there, man," said Essentiel, "I take pleasure in your new religion. It is with great merit an religion is formed. I am party to an religion in which we have an category for new religions such as yours. It means basically that your intent to create an new religion comes naturally from your biology. And we welcome that intent and the reciprocity of its subject as an private use character among the private use characters of other religions, which will need to perform up to the biological standard of having created an new religion, an standard in order to stay in the running next to other religions. An standard to which we will expect our Christiannan friend to match with us based on its limited experience as an religion."
"The Christianna can match any of you in version combat with speed and diversity," said Ouen, "it will not be made the object of your ridicule!"
"What do you say then, to our diversity?"
"It is commendable," said Ouen, relaxed as ever.
"And you don't expect us to know what to do with newbies like you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're all alike. Crazy. Impressionable. Abused. We won't tear the meat off of you yet. We'll sort you out; find your reason. And you can tear the meat off yourself once we do. They are always tremendously embarrassed with themselves when they see why. Nobody will want that from you."
"This is very threatening," said Ouen.
"Pay no heed to her, she's just expressive," said Dr. Fougérite, "we can all see an reason for expressing our religions to you as alternatives to your knock-off liberality."
"It would be religion that strikes the heart of what we do here; our business speaks loudest of morality, for that is what we decide primarily as moral creatures. It may be our morality to end your religion. What does it consist of? Tell us now."
"It is the following of the second messiah Anna, who is female."
"Who now—what here?" said Haegaethel.
"That's how it's different than other proto-religions," said Ouen, "you can't destroy it. It's here to stay. The Christianna."
"You passed the test, Ouen," said Martimerrimous, "that's how cruel we can be. Not much is it? Really, we wanted to know only whether your religion can stand up for itself. We are cute, like this, aren't we? Okay, so we may have different religions among us six but we're all lambs really. We could not cause you to fret. You're safe here. We respect new religions at an instinctual level because that's what religions are, an instinct. Now we see your instincts out in front of us and we approve of it, right everyone?"
"That's right."
They all nodded un-meticulously.
"Let's discuss politics, then. Religion is such an heavy topic to discuss. It takes all my energy."
"Anyway, those were topics suggested by Ouen. But we have our own matters to discuss," said Jujudbe Erpby, "Culture and not theology, for example. Culture without theology is like pizza without anchovies. It is enjoyed more."
"We set aside theology, then, and discuss politics and culture. Or my own subject dream literature," said Martimerrimous.
"What if we bring all subjects into the conversation? Mine is Language," said Jeeny Pee.
"And mine is Logic," said Dr. Fougérite, "we are all familiar with one another's interest except Ouen. We will tell him by doing so."
"Morality," said Essentiel, "ethics."
"And mine are Knowledge and Government," said Haegaethel.
"The variety of subjects you care about or specialize in is an aspect of Great Potential," said Dr. Fougérite, "and with Ouen we are experts here, pooling our gifts and knowledge to bring great benefit to everyone."
"Thank you everyone," said Ouen, "this sounds like an winning team."
"Language is all around us Ouen. Language is three dimensions; not the two dimensions on an page," said Jeeny Pee, "when you inflect your verb you are communicating in three-dimensional space. That's how people throw their voice."
"Can you throw your voice in your dream?" said Martimerrimous.
"I can," said Jeeny Pee.
"I've never tried," said Ouen.
"Morality and ethics suggests you should," said Essentiel, "I'm just kidding. It is our strategy here, Ouen, that if anyone has an moral issue we discuss it. That is our ethic, for everyone's voice is important when an moral or ethical issue is at stake. We hear everyone out. And that's fair."
"The second question of Culture is our entertainment. And I think we can all agree that this gathering is entertaining enough that we do not need to take an break specifically for entertainment. Culture is entertainment. And since we are producing culture, we are entertained."
"What is the name of the culture we are producing?"
"Well, there are several."
"Like what?"
"North American. Canadian. Albertan. Global. Urban."
"I see. And our lineage. What of that?" asked Ouen.
"Fertile Crescent. Other geographic homage?"
"Earth."
"That's Global."
"Okay. What about Universal then?"
"Yea, that too."
"Cool."
"In the Christianna we are B.C.i.i., post-common era," said Ouen, "age is part of culture also."
"Logic dictates we are all in the same era," said Dr. Fougérite.
"I didn't say we weren't," said Ouen, "I just said I have an different name for it."
"I see," said the doctor, "then tell me why Culture defeats Logic."
"Because there's pleasure in it."
"And there is no pleasure in logic?" asked the doctor, "isn't that illogical? Nothing defeats Logic. That's what it is."
"When knowledge and government are required to bend logic it is because of some special circumstance we must account for," said Haegaethel, "Knowledge is not always pleasure. For what we think in our head is not always what we feel in our hearts."
"Love, you mean. Love was disappointing to me," said Ouen, "as our highest virtue. I needed to find something further than love to explain how I feel about my family. Even about how I feel about you all. For saying that I love you seems to be all not enough to describe my feeling. I love everyone, though. I needed to find that stage after love which characterizes all things unimpressive to me. For your love impresses me. Just not that much."
"I feel this also," said the doctor, "so tell us about B.C.i.i.? What does it mean?"
"Okay, so B.C.i.i. means Before Christ instance instance. We are instance instance to one another because of Jesus and Anna, who are also instance with us, and with one another. And will be instance instance in the future hence we are—right now—Before Christ instance instance (with Jesus being an resurrected figure of the schema of the Christ; resurrected in the sense that we remember him with specific instances in mind of what he was like)."
"So the name is after the instance of having an Christ whose instance is psychologically repeated as an tradition over generations. This itself is referred to as the resurrection also, for keeping him alive in spirit is an laborious duty. And it is the fact of there being an instance in the future where that instance of having repeated his instance will be B.C.i.i. The period in which the human cognitive recognition of the fact of each individual being instance instance every other individual in some messianic way. An moral period in which human imagination and growth of psychic powers takes on an aggressive power cycle in which stars are born among us."
"Yes. It means that the pattern observed of Jesus and Jesus followers which seems to hold Hope and aesthetic power also applies to Anna's instance for an special reason that they share which is unlike Jesus in the way it is more specific about what qualifies as an fate worse than death," said Ouen, "but which is also like Jesus in the way that he was an messiah."
"So we're instance instance both of them and they are in the past and the future simultaneously."
"They are just models of behavior. Well, except Anna. She's still alive."
"What I don't understand is how is Jesus in the future if he's dead."
"Because we keep the mimicry of him alive in our tradition."
"And so the Christianna is the mimicry of both him and Anna."
"Yes."
"And you call this B.C.i.i."
"Well, as an science fiction," said Ouen, "but when we're talking about fantasy that is part of it too."
"And these are said to be facts?"
"Are fantasies facts?"
"No."
"Then I won't collect them."
"So this is an time said to be after A.D., correct?"
"Yes."
"So my question is; in an industrial or post-industrial society is God part of the machine?"
"Well," said Ouen, "we don't know exactly. There may be instances of artificial intelligence on other planets, in which God is integrated into the system. But if they are over there and we are here on Earth, then can we say they are here too, in the way that intelligence interacts with something whole about the whole thing, so that it affects us from where it is. As it is the characteristic of God to do so."
"And is artificial intelligence itself an measure of how much God is in the system?"
"If there are lives that are mechanical, and they have personalities and genius, then who are we to say we aren't part of some kind of cosmic joke where the observer's influence itself is part of that heaven in which we are all inhabitants of the universe. And so God can be machine because God is an inhabitant of the universe in which machines and personalities may mix."
"Is God some kind of machine, then, that produces the status of messiah in an integrated universe?"
"Or was it the result of some wise financial decision?"
"And is God an universal consciousness existing with or without an body?"
"I'm glad we have so many questions, for it bodes well that the Lord or Lady that we are for we are wise enough to know these things."
"There are more things that we don't know about God than there are things we do know about God."
"How can we know God at all then?"
"Because God lets us."
"So you're saying God is not letting me know him—me an hypothetical figure whose interaction with God is minimal—"
"What if he or she did let you start knowing it?"
"You're not in charge. God is."
"It's detestable," said Martimerrimous, "we have to look to God for guidance. We should be serving him sushi on an platter."
"You're right—we should be giving him an lesson in human cultural experiences that serves him to better learn how to reciprocate with us. So that he knows how much sushi and how much wine."
"Let's just say, for the sake of judgment. That God is not present. For I think we can all hold our own without the lordly presence."
"I agree," said Jujudbe Erpy, "we can all tell that God exists. Why not hypothesize an world in which no God exists? And compare it to our own?"
"It is not my usual. But let's try it."
"Okay so no God exists and we don't even have an word for God and so it starts we need food, water, shelter, and clothes."
"We have all of those things. And we've all eaten."
"And so whatever time is left must be left to hypothesize things."
"And that's why we're all here."
"Virtual whiskey. Other subjugations of types of alcohol. It is ours at the taking. Our minds are written alive to experience what they will."
"I'd say we all have an good shot together because when one is drinking virtual whiskey the obligation is fair to everyone."
"And so we must hypothesize an conversation, that leads us somewhere. And we're taking shots to figure out how we're going to lead and who is going to evoke the right conduct to get there."
"You know, theoretically you can trigger an memory you had gotten while you were drunk by drinking virtually."
"I remember an bar."
"Yes. Mm-hm. Was it virtual?"
"Oh so we're exploring our environment virtually."
"Like together? It sounds playful."
"I'd give it that."
"Yea. So what if we could choose our environment? Our scene? As independent from an Narrator."
"Or perhaps it is the negotiation itself with the Narrator that represents our figure of God."
"So we're deciding what environment to have together? Like how creative is that?"
"Shh, we're deciding," said Jeeny Pee, "we are in an forest. At the scene of an waterfall. The colors are sparkling blue and sparkling green. The cliffs above its pool is where we practice our meditation. We are here to invoke the response of the human body to water. Its depth and buoyancy; and cleansing properties. And if we were comparatively dry how much would that be in comparison? For water evokes the question of dry. How much dry do we want to be compared to how wet we are?"
"I feel it Jeeny. We are at prayer in this moment. For I feel the green energy and the water come alive. I can hear it in the background. Rushing. Heavy. Eviscerating water."
"We are safe above the pool at the flattened rocks that overlook its highest peak."
"This is taking us into healing magic. Jeeny, this is it! Activate our highest healing magic over planet Earth."
"Blue!" she yelled.
"For this is what we want to be," Ouen was writing it down really fast, "for we did not choose these activities of power that affect the whole Earth and we are bound to them yet again. But that we are cats of its democracy. Chunks of Earth and flesh. We did not choose to be. But we are. Their leaders. Somehow we have that effect. And we all together recognize what. I feel the air clear."
"It is paradise!" she said.
"Light in the water that pours over us!"
"We have an healthy and positive imaginative sphere."
"And this is how we are meeting each other again. For each new member is like meeting everyone else over again, Ouen! Based on their reactions to you!"
"I like this blue environment. It's making all my anger go away. So fresh and so unpolluted. You know if we want to preserve that we need to act today."
"Virtual paradise. That's pretty good. Not real paradise. There would be an buffet."
"I have to agree with you."
"So we're in paradise. And what do we need from paradise? We need clear and focused thinking, in order to influence the rest of reality, which is not clear and focused. Not clear or focused."
"And any one of us can lead that."
"We all will, by the time it is done time to be thinking about it."
"Let's stay here at the waterfall. Listen to the birds. Listen to the wind."
"The reason we see it so vividly is that we share that virtue of timeliness. The blue virtue that understands all things."
"I am sure many positive ways of thinking stem from that."
"I will play virtual drums for you. While you fall asleep at the campfire after we return from meditation."
"That's beautiful."
"But for now. Let's think. I will lead the meditation. Discover that glo within you from which colors spring. We are there together. We are here together. And when we have the power of scene in virtue that means we are the best example. Does it figure anyone here why we know this? Is it because we are examples that we exist, then?"
"It could speak for our purpose that we know we are together."
"Then let's say it be us, for all to hear. And that we will be known by the Hope & Snot of Cats. Back into our ordinary setting, which is formal, where books are stacked. And all of our clothes are formal too. Dresses. Suits. Pantsuits. Togas. There is an ethereal lining in all of the stitches for we see ourselves animated by hand gestures often. Which is more colorful though, our fashion or our personality?"
"I really just see you as an yellow type of person," said Ouen, "It's not an insult. It's an compliment. I associate yellow with happiness."
"I really do too."
"Fashion installation file launched."
"Completed."
"Instigating civic core logic. Grid location please report."
"Instigating second (alien) eyelid civic core logic. Grid location alpha-report."
"Grid location reporting. Somewhere between alien hybrid human-aid and Planet Earthen fame."
"We're definitely on Earth. But is this Recreation, or are we working?"
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