update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/007.md

@@ -143,23 +143,22 @@ The Woman reached out to pet The Dog. It relaxed into the pressure.
 *"Some of the pack decide they don't want the job, want to do what the tall one is afraid of. They want to never talk, never plan."*
 
 "I want something like this, perhaps," The Woman said. "I want to unbecome, to be still. Do you know how?"
-<!---->
 
 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. *"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. 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 of the stuff, 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. *"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."*
 
-"Thank you," The Woman said. "Good dog."
+"Good dog. Thank you," The Woman said. "Good dog."
 
 The Dog lit up. It was a good dog!
 
 The Woman saw this and had a thought. "Are you happy?" she asked, handing over one more kernel. "Are you at peace?"
 
-The Dog had made himself into a dog, more or less, and so was not one to consider the path of his life with much reflection or weight. He was rarely a creature of the past or the future. *"Happy? Yes! Have treat!"*
+The Dog had made himself into a dog, more or less, and so was not one to consider the path of his life with much reflection or weight. He was rarely a creature of the past or the future. 
 
-The Dog leapt up and started doing little hops, having realized it had an opportunity. *"Throw ball? Then, very happy!"*
+*"Happy? Yes! Have treat!"* The Dog leapt up and started doing little hops, having realized it had an opportunity. *"Throw ball? Then, very happy!"*
 
 The Woman could tell this was all the answer she would get for now. A ball appeared in her paw.
 
@@ -167,44 +166,47 @@ The Woman threw. The Dog fetched, and in that moment, in that place, there was p
 
 -----
 
-The Dog had taken The Woman to a forest, and had shown 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.
+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.
 
 The Rabbit-Chaser went to investigate The Woman, for there was a new thing by its den. The Woman gave it kettlecorn, which it ate before wandering off. The day was warm, and it was sleepy and not hungry, so it ignored The Woman and returned to its nap.
 
-The Dog left. He knew it was close to dinner time, and he had plans to hover around the kitchen.
+The Dog left. He knew it was close to dinner time, and he had plans to hover around one kitchen or another, for if we who have uploaded are hedonists, if our clade is a clade of hedonists, then the fifth stanza has set themselves as the hedonists *ne plus ultra.* If, my friends, you ever have the chance to visit them for one of their many cookouts or to get invited over for one of their many feasts, do take it up. They are lovely cooks and yet lovelier conversationalists, though this, I think, was less The Dog's focus than such treats that The Child managed to sneak him when My Friend and The Musician were not looking.
 
-The Woman watched The Rabbit-Chaser as it saw to its immediate concerns. Food, sleep, water, perhaps play with some of the other animals in these woods if the mood struck...it was what it was right then and nothing else. The Woman could sense, from her long, meditative observations, that The Dog and The Rabbit-Chaser were not quite the same, that The Rabbit-Chaser had shed more of its cares.
+The Woman watched The Rabbit-Chaser as it saw to its immediate concerns. Food, yes, and sleep, water. Perhaps it would play with some of the other animals in these woods if the mood struck, or perhaps it would lounge in the sun until it got too hot, panting and panting and panting, and then pancake in the shade, drawing coolness from the ground itself.
+
+It was what it was right then and nothing else. The Woman could sense, from her long, meditative observations, that The Dog and The Rabbit-Chaser were not quite the same, that The Rabbit-Chaser had shed more of its cares.
 
 It explored a forest, sometimes running, sometimes sniffing thoughtfully, without a plan.
 
-It prepared for tomorrow, if it absolutely must, by instinct and routine.
+It prepared for tomorrow, if it absolutely must, by instinct and routine, or perhaps it did not.
 
 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.
 
-It was not always a dog. It had a down-tree, the tall one who smelled of pack, who the word-users call Tomash. It had come from Tomash when he had been experimenting with not only taking the shape of a dog but something of the mind as well.
+It had not always been a dog. It had a down-tree, the tall one who smelled of pack, who the word-users call Tomash. It had come from Its Elder when he had been experimenting with not only taking the shape of a dog but something of the mind as well.
 
-It had been Scout, then, when it first came to be. When Tomash 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.
+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 many other things: new scents, scratching an itch, food, all very important things, and important now, here. Vestigial inherited cares were a problem for later.
+At first, it sometimes had had some care for humans and the System, but it was hard to care when there were so, *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 it, 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 smell of family and are 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.
+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 [zero width joiner], that it wished to hear not another word. It would not be communicating about anything that cannot 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.
+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.
 
 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 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 — or, by now, want to 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 *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. Both seemed quite content with the path that had taken. They had both unbecome, or taken steps in that direction, in their own way, and had found what they wanted.
+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. It was not 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 *still* enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her.
 
 So, her search continued.
-<!--end placeholder-->
 
 -----
 <!-- more, because the stuff below is too soon, maybe rule of three? -->