update from sparkleup
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<p>“It will be worth it, I promise.”</p>
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<p>“The coffee?”</p>
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<p>The panther laughed once more. “Well, I was going to say the story, but the coffee <em>is</em> quite good here, so, yes.”</p>
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<p>It was only another minute or two of waiting before Hasher waved to get their attention, gesturing to three paper cups sitting on the bar, ready for them. Slow Hours dropped the cone of silence and winced at the sudden barrage of sounds that followed. She turned her hearing down a few ticks. “Thank you,” she said, bowing. “By the way, we were hoping to meet up with a cocladist of ours. She is a skunk, a furry, built rather like myself. Black fur, white stripe, a little jumpy. Have you seen her around?”</p>
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<p>It was only another minute or two of waiting before Hasher waved to get their attention, gesturing to three paper cups sitting on the bar, ready for them. Slow Hours dropped the cone of silence and winced at the sudden barrage of sounds that followed. She turned her hearing down a few ticks. “Thank you,” she said, bowing. “By the way, we were hoping to meet up with a cocladist of ours. She is a skunk, a furry, built rather like myself.” She gestured down at herself — human, instead, with pale skin and curly black hair tied up in a messy bun, but stocky and short. “Black fur, white stripe, a little jumpy. Have you seen her around?”</p>
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<p>Wiping their hands on a towel hooked into the strings of their apron, Hasher nodded, tilting their head over toward the couch full of robots. “The one who was sleeping there the last few weeks, I’m guessing?”</p>
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<p>“Sleeping?” Slow Hours asked, frowning.</p>
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<p>“Yeah. She would just kind of curl up at one end for a few hours and nap. No biggie, of course, and we all liked her. She only ever slept while things were slow, and she’d always move when asked.” They broke out into a grin again, shrugging. “Or when it got too loud. Or when it got too quiet. Or just every now and then for no reason we could figure out, but she was always very polite about it.”</p>
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<p>“And that is what you are feeling now?” Slow Hours asked.</p>
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<p>“No,” she said, once more sounding miserable. “If I do not feel ecstasy, I feel anguish. I feel…mm, I feel nullity. I feel nothing. I feel RJ and I think, “Ah my friend, my friend.” I do not see in em the divine. I do not feel <em>b’tzelem Elohim,</em> I feel stupid. I feel…ah, I feel broken. I have been staying here, sleeping where I may be seen because I am afraid…ah, because I am so, <em>so</em> afraid that I will disappear, that I will crash and that no one will notice me. I fear that I will be forgotten and that…ohhh, I am talking in circles. I am thinking in circles, I am sorry.”</p>
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<p>“It is okay,” Slow Hours said gently. “Do you think you are overflowing because of the Century Attack?”</p>
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<p>The skunk whimpered and pushed herself quickly to her feet, pacing once more and shaking her paws out as though to dry them off. “I have been dreaming,” she mumbled, then jerked her head to the side with a quiet squeak. She continued more clearly. “I have been dreaming, here on the couch, out there in Infinite Café when…ah, when I fall asleep out there.”</p>
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<p>The skunk whimpered and pushed herself quickly to her feet, pacing once more and shaking her paws out as though to dry them off, then straightening her already straight skunkerchief. “I have been dreaming,” she mumbled, then jerked her head to the side with a quiet squeak. She continued more clearly. “I have been dreaming, here on the couch, out there in Infinite Café when…ah, when I fall asleep out there.”</p>
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<p>Slow Hours tilted her head, sitting up straighter.</p>
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<p>What Right Have I smiled faintly. “I have…ah, I am not the oracle that you are, my dear. I am no prophet.”</p>
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<p>She smiled, shaking her head. “Neither am I. I would still like to hear your dream, though.”</p>
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<p>The skunk nodded. “I am disembodied, yes? I am floating and I see a figure, and they begin to weep, and they dissolve into a cloud of black specks, and these specks float away on a breeze, and each one enters the heart of a cladist, and they cry out in agony and dissolve into clouds of their own, and so it ramifies until all are dust. I see you, yes, and I see If I Dream, and I see Querulous and I see No Longer Myself.”</p>
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<p>The skunk nodded, paused to gather her thoughts, then spoke slowly. “I am disembodied, yes? I am floating and I see a figure, and they begin to weep, and they dissolve into a cloud of black specks, and these specks float away on a breeze, and each one enters the heart of a cladist, and they cry out in agony and dissolve into clouds of their own, and so it ramifies until all are dust. I see you, yes, and I see If I Dream, and I see Should We Forget and I see No Longer Myself.”</p>
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<p>If I Dream jerked back as though slapped, a sudden move that was nevertheless silent. “Do not–” she said, then shook her head.</p>
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<p>“I am sorry, If I Dream,” What Right Have I said, bowing low and forcing herself to sit once more. “I…ah, my dreaming mind remembered names of those lost, perhaps, and extrapolated.”</p>
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<p>The panther nodded, scrubbed a paw over her face, and sighed. “It is okay, my dear. I am still feeling raw.”</p>
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<p>She startled to awareness, smiling sheepishly. “Since the attack? No, nothing memorable, though I have not been sleeping well. I do not imagine many are.”</p>
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<p>“And before?”</p>
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<p>What Right Have I perked up, setting her coffee aside and scrubbing her paws together, kneading pads against pads. “Do your prophecies only come in dreams?”</p>
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<p>Slow Hours laughed. “My little predictions are not prophecies. They are just that: guesses based on the trajectories of the stories one tells. I may predict that, when we leave today, What Right Have I will linger a while yet because there is something she has yet to tell us– no, it will come in time, you do not need to yet. But that is based on the trajectory of the story I have heard so far.” She hesitated a moment, thinking. “But yes, I have had dreams that may well have been prophecies, but only ever in hindsight.”</p>
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<p>Slow Hours laughed. “My little predictions are not prophecies. They are just that: guesses based on the trajectories of the stories one tells. I may predict that, when we leave today, What Right Have I will linger a while yet because there is something she has yet to tell us– no, it will come in time, you do not need to until you are ready. But that is based on the trajectory of the story I have heard so far.” She hesitated a moment, thinking. “But yes, I have had dreams that may well have been prophecies, but only ever in hindsight.”</p>
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<p>“Tell us…ah, I mean, will you tell us some of what you dreamed?”</p>
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<p>“Yes. It has happened four times. Only those four, though.” She held up her hand with that many fingers raised. “Perhaps Lagrange got hit by a stray cosmic ray or some other fancy particle and it flipped a bit inside the portion that contained me, and I was given some premonition. Smacked upside the head by Apollo, yes? Or, in your terms, visited by the angel of the Lord who gave me a honeyed scroll to eat.”</p>
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<p>“Yes. It has happened four times. Only those four, though.” She held up her hand with that many fingers raised as she explained. “Perhaps Lagrange got hit by a stray cosmic ray or some other fancy particle and it flipped a bit inside the portion that contained me, and I was given some premonition. Smacked upside the head by Apollo, yes? Or, in your terms, visited by the angel of the Lord who gave me a honeyed scroll to eat.”</p>
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<p>She tapped one finger. “The first was about Qoheleth and his little…adventure. Some two decades before, I had the same dream five nights in a row, of him standing in his robes, arms raised to the heavens, and then crumbling down into sand. At the time, I did not even realize that it was him. I had not seen him in more than a century, and when I had, he was dressed like a natty old college professor.”</p>
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<p>The next finger, tapped. “The second was about Michelle’s death, and I will not repeat it.”</p>
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<p>She tapped her ring finger. “The third happened in the midst of a play — one of my yearly performances — and I fell to my knees and cried out, “The knife! At her neck, the knife! And the way out is through, and the way out is through.” I passed out after that, but apparently I mumbled yet more that tallied exactly with Sasha’s experience.”</p>
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<p>She tapped her ring finger. “The third happened in the midst of a play — one of my yearly performances — and in the scene, I was to fall to my knees and cry out, “The knife! At her neck, the knife!.” But instead, I passed out and apparently mumbled words not in the script which tallied exactly with Sasha’s experience.”</p>
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<p>There was a moment of silence as she considered the fourth and how best to describe it, not least because of the easy comparison to What Right Have I’s dream as explained. Finally, she tapped her pinkie “The fourth was a dream of a core part of me being removed through the back of my neck, a disappearing from the world and becoming a ghost in the next. There was more that I do not understand, visions of a field, a park, but I had that dream every night on the five nights leading up to New Year’s.”</p>
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<p>What Right Have I listened attentively to Slow Hours’s description of her prophecies, or at least prophetic dreams. As she spoke, her cocladist’s expression darkened, until by the end, she was scowling. “I am no Daniel,” the skunk said once she had finished. “I will not scry your <em>mene, mene, tekel, parsin.</em> But if you had foreknowledge of Michelle’s suicide or the Century Attack, why did you not say anything? Who might we be if Michelle had lived? Might Lagrange be undamaged if we but knew this?” </p>
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<p>What Right Have I listened attentively to Slow Hours’s description of her prophecies, or at least prophetic dreams. As she spoke, her cocladist’s expression darkened, until by the end, she was scowling. “I am no Daniel,” the skunk said once she had finished. “I will not scry your <em>mene, mene, tekel, parsin.</em> But if you had foreknowledge of Michelle’s suicide or the Century Attack, why did you not say anything? Who might we be if Michelle still lived? Might Lagrange be unharmed if we but knew this?” </p>
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<p>By the end, she was nearly growling.</p>
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<p>If I Dream lifted her snout from where her gaze had drifted. “Did she know, my dear? Or did she only have a recurring anxious nightmare? Do we not all have a hundred recurring anxious nightmares a year?”</p>
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<p>The skunk glowered. “And? If that is–” A tic briefly interrupted her, and this time she really did growl, though it appeared to be more at herself than anything. “If that is so, then why were these not known?”</p>
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<p>Slow Hours straightened up. “I apologize if that came off as in any way glib, What Right Have I, or as though I could have done anything about them. I did try to get in touch with Michelle after those nights of dreams, but she only smiled and reassured me that she would “live on”. It was not until after that those words had any import.” </p>
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<p>Slow Hours straightened up. “I apologize if that came off as in any way glib, What Right Have I, or as though I could have done anything about them. I did try to get in touch with Michelle after those nights of dreams, but she only smiled and reassured me that she would “live on”. It was not until after she quit that those words had any import.” </p>
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<p>What Right Have I’s shoulders sagged, though she was clearly still gritting her teeth.</p>
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<p>She sighed, continuing, “And perhaps it is as If I Dream says. They were anxious nightmares. However, they still bore the acrid tang of ill omens to me. There was a scent of premonition, and so I have slotted them neatly into that category, even if they were only caused by anxiety.”</p>
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<p>There followed a long moment while the skunk processed this. She seemed to be running down a mental checklist, as her rapid breathing shifted almost immediately into something deeper and more even, her posture straightened from a wary hunch as though ready to bolt, and her expression settled into a rather stiff half-smile. All spoke of various bits of therapy Slow Hours remembered from centuries back.</p>
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<p>“If I have, including the scent of premonition, then I do not remember them. It was that scent, though, that led me to reach out to Michelle. I am embarrassed to say that that was the only one I acted on, though, given that all four of those revolve around death.”</p>
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<p>What Right Have I furrowed her brow, paws shifting to clench tightly around the hem of her tunic. “I remember a story…ah, a snippet from the <em>History</em> where May Then My Name says that Michelle thought of herself as a dead woman walking, yes.”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “May Then My Name went on to say that Michelle thought that perhaps even the dead can know joy, yes.”</p>
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<p>“Did she, in the end?” If I Dream asked, frowning. “Know joy, that is? When she asked us all to merge with her, to share with her all that we had become, what did she feel? When, for an instant, she became ten thousand years old, did she choose to quit because she found the peace one finds at dusk?”</p>
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<p>“Did she, in the end?” If I Dream asked, frowning. “Know joy, that is? When she asked us all to merge with her, to share with her all that we had become, what did she feel? When, for an instant, she became ten thousand years old, did she choose to quit because she found peace?”</p>
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<p>“I think that she did, yes.” Slow Hours spoke carefully, keeping an eye on What Right Have I for further tics or other signs of distress. “Or, rather, I must believe that she did. There is too much despair if I imagine her as buried under the weight of all of our own despairs and neuroses. If it is a comfortable fiction, so be it. I will live in that comfortable fiction.”</p>
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<p>If I Dream nodded slowly. “Far be it from me to dispel what curtains keep despair from leading you after her. When I received her sensorium message, I nearly refused to attend out of protest. I think many of us saw the writing on the walls when we heard that uncertain steeliness in her voice.”</p>
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<p>When I Dream winced, squirming tensely in her seat, right at the edge of the couch cushion. “It…ah…I mean, I struggled. I was there. We all were! But I struggled.”</p>
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<p>The panther smiled faintly to her. “We all did, yes. Part of me felt that if any one of us did not go, then she would not quit. Another part was terrified I would be one of many who did not come, and that she would die feeling abandoned by her own family. If she was going to quit, and she wished to do so in the company of her clade…”</p>
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<p>She trailed off and let her gaze wander down to the drink she still held in her paws. Blinking rapidly, the muscles on her cheeks and snout briefly became more prominent, as though she was doing her best to keep her expression placid, much as it had been throughout, though the tears leaving tracks in her cheekfur were impossible to hide.</p>
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<p>Alarmed at the sudden shift in demeanor, Slow Hours scooted a few inches closer to If I Dream, offering her hand just as the panther had done to What Right Have I before. </p>
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<p>If I Dream nodded slowly. “Far be it from me to dispel what curtains keep despair from leading you after her.”</p>
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<p>She laughed and shook her head.</p>
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<p>“When I received her sensorium message, I nearly refused to attend out of protest. I think many of us saw the writing on the walls when we heard that uncertain steeliness in her voice.”</p>
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<p>What Right Have I winced, squirming tensely in her seat, right at the edge of the couch cushion. “It…ah…I mean, I struggled. I was there– we all were there! But I struggled.”</p>
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<p>The panther smiled faintly to her. “We all did, yes. Part of me felt that if any one of us did not go, then she would not quit. Another part was terrified I would be one of many who did not come, and that she would die feeling abandoned by her own family. If she was going to quit, and she wished to do so in the company of her clade…And now…”</p>
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<p>She trailed off and let her gaze wander down to the drink she still held in her paws. Blinking rapidly, the muscles on her cheeks and snout briefly became more prominent, as though she was doing her best to keep her expression placid, to not snarl or voice her despair, much as it had been throughout, though the tears leaving tracks in her cheekfur were impossible to hide.</p>
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<p>Alarmed at the sudden shift in demeanor, Slow Hours scooted a few inches closer to If I Dream, offering her hand just as the panther had done for What Right Have I before. </p>
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<p>She accepted with a grateful — if still wan — smile.</p>
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<p>Slow Hours returned that smile, saying quietly, “That was the dream I had, you know. The premonition. An upwelling of joy and then an overflowing. She looked up to the sun, up to the RJ, and then they were one and the same, and it was all joy.”</p>
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<p>What Right Have I burst into tears. She did not cry prettily, but very few people did. It was, however, a brief cry, and soon after she scooted back to the furthest limit of the cone of silence and drew her legs up onto the couch with her, growling as she did, “Slow Hours, you are the fucking worst.”</p>
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<p>At this, What Right Have I burst into tears. She did not cry prettily, but very few people did. It was a brief cry, however, and soon after she scooted back to the furthest limit of the cone of silence and drew her legs up onto the couch with her, growling as she did, “Slow Hours, you are the fucking worst.”</p>
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<p>“I am the worst, yes,” she said, voice still quiet and calm. “But that is why I am choosing to believe that the premonition was true and why I am choosing to believe that she did find joy, or peace, or at least nothingness and freedom.”</p>
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<p>“They both deserve to be together. I hope that that is what No Longer Myself has obtained. What all of those lost have,” If I Dream eked out. “I hope your dreams were true, in the end.”</p>
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<p>“They both deserve to be together. I hope that that is what No Longer Myself has obtained. What all of those lost have,” If I Dream sighed.</p>
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<p>“I think…ah, I hope your dreams were true, in the end,” What Right Have I said after a long silence between the three of them, after each had fallen merely to sniffles. “I hope that they <em>were</em> prophecies, whether or not you knew.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-02-05</p>
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