Posts Tagged ‘Cartography’

21 items.

Dragons

by Jenna on January 17th, 2004

In the old days, they didn’t know very much about the world. But they made maps anyway. If they had to map something they couldn’t, they just drew whatever they felt like and wrote, “Here there be dragons.”

Someone found this site by asking google whether dragons are real.

If you tried to map the world today, you could detail every inch of the world’s surface. Satellites could show you every forest and every bush, every mountain and every field. They could show you your house and mine. There are no empty spaces left.

We don’t know very much about the world; and there are things to map of it besides its surface.

    Can broken things be remade?

      Can destinies change?

        Is it worth the risk of hope?

Important questions, but one can only shrug, you see.

Here, there be dragons.

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The Stage (IV/IV)

by Jenna on January 22nd, 2004

The lady sits in her room. She weaves a tapestry. She looks out towards the sea.

“Ms. Brown,” she says.

Ms. Brown attends her. “Yes, milady?”

“The sea,” she says. “Does it seem altogether well?”

Ms. Brown looks out the window. “It’s a bit ragged at the edges. The horizon’s coming undone. I suppose the world’s ending.”

“There are angels who promised that this place would live forever,” the lady says.

“Angels forget.”

“And gods,” the lady says.

“Gods forget, too.”

“And all the others. Dragons and women and beasts and men and the spirits of the sea; they said they’d give this place their shelter.”

“It’s been a very long time, milady.”

“Ah,” she says.

“It’s not painful,” Ms. Brown says. “It’s very gentle. The world just comes apart, and then there’s nothingness. You and the sea and the land—you all fade away together.”

The lady looks up. “It’s happened before?”

Ms. Brown shrugs.

The lady smiles, lightly. “It shan’t again,” she says. She takes the tapestry and folds it under her arm; and she walks from her tower, and down to the land, and out across the sea. All around her, chaos eats at the edge of the world. She steps beyond it.

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The Rent in the Fullness of the World (I/II)

by Jenna on August 12th, 2004

It is 1996.

Martin is standing around at the science fair. He’s wearing a black suit. So are most of the other kids. That’s the kind of boarding school this is.

“Love,” says Mr. Schiff, at the podium. “Finance. Status. Ambition. These are the earmarks of the world beyond these walls—the householder’s world, the world of fetters. This is not such a world! What matters here is science. Bend your hearts to the achievement of the blue ribbon science fair prize. Give yourself to no other ambition! Grow up too soon, and you might catch on fire! Seek to understand the human mind and heart, and bleakness will seize you. But forge an immaculate project from the fires of your meditation, and endless honors shall be yours!”

There is scattered applause. Mr. Schiff steps down from the podium and begins to study the projects before him.

Oden’s project is a volcano. It’s made of papier-mâché. It sizzles and boils out its synthetic guts.

“It’s an excellent volcano,” Mr. Schiff says.

“I modeled it after a real one,” Oden says. “But I didn’t include any mini-people. My R.A. said that would be ‘too distressing.’”

“I’ll credit you for the thought,” Mr. Schiff says, “and the discretion.”

Oden nods. Mr. Schiff moves on.

The cookie Norn stands in front of a display. Mr. Schiff reads the central placard.

“‘Can fortune cookies truly reveal your future?’”

The cookie Norn cackles incomprehensibly behind her braces. She passes Mr. Schiff a cookie. He cracks it open. He frowns at it.

“I protest this future,” he says. He reads the cookie Norn’s statistical studies. “For all that you assess it a 72.9% circumstantial likelihood of truth.”

Oden grins over at the cookie Norn. “No blue ribbon science fair prize for you,” he says.

She hangs her head. “Defeat,” she mumbles, “is a bitter cookie indeed.”

Mr. Schiff tosses the fortune aside.

Bert’s project is a potato. Mr. Schiff studies it carefully.

“Is it a clock?” he asks. “Or some sort of battery?”

“It’s raw potential,” Bert says.

“Ah,” Mr. Schiff answers.

“It’s unformed,” Bert says. “It’s a potato in all its untamed glory. A glimpse, if you will, into the mind of God.”

“As he thinks about a potato, and all the wonders it could perform.”

“Even so,” Bert says.

During Mr. Schiff’s distraction, Oden has seized the fortune. He holds it near the volcano and reads it in the firelight.

Mr. Schiff moves on. He studies Kama’s sounds and scents of spring.

“Interesting,” Mr. Schiff says. “But perhaps inappropriately erotic.”

Oden looks up from Mr. Schiff’s fortune. “Maybe it’ll get you in the mood for this Parvati chick.”

Mr. Schiff smiles blandly at Oden. The fortune, held a bit too close to the volcano, bursts into flame.

“I have no interest in marriage,” Mr. Schiff says. “I have renounced the world. I am a renunciate.”

Martin, one display over, looks up. He raises an eyebrow.

“I am a geology teacher,” Mr. Schiff says. “I have chosen to live among freaks and outcasts, in a place of savagery and isolation. My position offers neither wealth nor social status. My disciples are equally without influence or place. I am a renunciate! Free of the obstructive fetters of society, I can seek the spiritual improvement of humanity.”

“To grasp geology,” Bert proposes, “a man must first forsake all love.”

“Even so.”

During Mr. Schiff’s distraction, Kama has drawn a bow and arrow.

“Kama?” Martin asks.

Kama fires. The arrow estranges itself from ordinary space and attempts to perturb and intoxicate Mr. Schiff.

The geology teacher turns back to Kama. He rubs at his lined forehead. Kama bursts into flame and burns instantly to ash. Bert and the cookie Norn draw back. Mr. Schiff frowns. “Oden,” he says, “your volcano seems a safety hazard.”

Oden rubs uncomfortably at his neck. His smile has frozen in place.

“I hadn’t expected it to burn people to ash,” he says. “I superstitiously attribute the matter to divine agency. A blue ribbon for myself will no doubt soothe the wrath of the volcano god.”

The cookie Norn, in belated reaction, is retching. She is doubled over. Bert is patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. She is thinking that death isn’t just a strip of paper, and regretting her braces. He is wondering if he should remove the potato from his hand.

“And a posthumous green ribbon for Kama,” Oden adds. “It would ease the pain of his departure.”

But Mr. Schiff is not listening. He has moved on to Martin. He is studying Martin’s placard array.

The Rent in the Design
The practice of defining a world, commonly known as cartography, is subject to the generation of inconsistencies. These manifest within the created world as woglies: toroidal gods with two winky eyes and a propensity for rotation.

But are woglies inevitable?

Blandly, blandly, Mr. Schiff looks down. “This project seems outside the traditional scope of scientific inquiry.”

Martin shrugs. “I ask little,” he says. “Evaluate it honestly. Offer me such constructive comments as come to mind. Perhaps bestow on me a blue science fair ribbon, honoring scientific accomplishment beyond the petty dreams of my dreary peers. My desires of you end there.”

Pride and anger pierce through shock and Oden glares at Martin. “I hear a voice boasting of great deeds,” he says, “but I see no one of any consequence. In ancient times, mini-people would sacrifice mini-virgins to scientific marvels like my volcano. Can your placards and diagrams say the same?”

Martin waves a hand dismissively. “Ignore him,” he says. “It is sad to see jealousy bring an eighth-grader so low.”

Inside the Wogly
Dissecting a wogly shows a remarkable absence of cogent physical components. A miniature brain and muscle system, comparable to a mayfly’s, governs their winking. Otherwise, their tough invertebrate shell houses only a thin lacing of nerve tendrils or (arguably) blood vessels, as depicted on the opposite panel. Two thousand symmetrical indentations surround the wogly’s inner emptiness. These connect to nothing and serve no physiological function. Woglies lack obvious motive force and mechanisms for thought; they are, apparently, entirely reactive creatures.

“This is not,” Mr. Schiff says, “the project you’d originally intended to submit.”

“No,” Martin says. “I had intended to remake the world to my specifications. My great work would have answered many of the problems of the day and, as an incidental matter, guaranteed me the top science fair prize. This effort failed. I found myself with nothing save an excellent crop of woglies. Demonstrating ingenuity and the ability to adapt to adverse circumstances, I used them as research subjects for a new, independent study.”

Mr. Schiff studies the pictures of the woglies.

“What keeps them aloft?” he says.

“Self-confidence,” Martin says. “Or such is my working theory.”

“If you were to suspend some sort of wire frame between them, . . .” Mr. Schiff begins.

Martin shakes his head. “I explored the immediate avenues of technical utility,” he says.

“To no avail?”

“To no avail.”

Three Worlds
One can divide worlds into three categories: formal, informal, and primordial. It is a matter of mathematical necessity that any formally created world must possess a wogly; the process of scientific cartography necessitates their existence. An informally-created world is not necessarily inconsistent, yet in practice, such worlds are essentially breeding grounds, drained to nothing by the burgeoning wogly presence. The primordial world is the world of reality.
For the aspiring cartographer, the real world is a mystery.

Mr. Schiff looks wryly at Martin. “When a thirteen-year-old writes that something is a mystery,” he says, “it often indicates a reluctance to read the assigned material. On other occasions, it suggests a gap in his research created by procrastination, late nights, and a desperate desire to conceal his failings.”

“When I am older,” Martin says, “I shall weasel more transparently.”

Mr. Schiff puts his fist over his own mouth, as if to prevent a cough. “Ah.”

“Mr. Schiff,” Martin says, “In what fashion does the real world differ? Why are there no woglies in the streets, in the buildings, in the sun, in the Planck constants, in the gravitational field, in the history of King Louis XIV? Why is there no rent in the fullness of the world?”

“I am a geology teacher,” Mr. Schiff demurs. “What would I know of the real world? No one I know has heard from it for ages.”

Martin frowns. “Let us assume,” he says, “that a baseline exists.”

Mr. Schiff smiles lightly. “Then,” he says, “one must assume that it is written in the geological record. The truths of the world are lain bare in stone.”

“And potatoes,” Bert observes. “The dance of a potato is like the dance of Shiva: a perfect expression of the potential of the world.”

Bert holds up the potato. He moves it from place to place in a dance that in only the vaguest and broadest respects resembles the dance of Shiva. Mr. Schiff ignores him.

Mr. Schiff takes out a thin gray rock. He sets it on the table before Martin.

“It is marked,” Martin says.

“Is it?”

“By the march of glaciers,” Martin says, “and the dances of the sea. By endless years.”

Mr. Schiff smiles. It’s the kind of smile you’d expect from a geology teacher. “Stones are poor historians,” he says, “but you will find no more faithful scribes. The world, as Bert hints, is a dance; the stones record its steps.”

“The record is incomplete,” Martin says.

Mr. Schiff leans over and studies the rock. “I blame the potato,” he says. “Its unfocused potential detracts from the completeness of the world.”

“I strenuously object!” Bert says. “Why single out my potato for opprobrium? There is no thing that has no flaw.”

Martin looks up, and even through his goggles, it is the bleakest of all stares.

“Be at ease, Martin,” Mr. Schiff says. “A scientist must adapt to adverse circumstances.”

Mr. Schiff moves on.

“Really,” he says, studying Heather’s display. “‘Find your perfect mate?’”

Heather looks at him with wide, nervous eyes. “It’s a study of biorhythm and skin conductance compatibility factors,” she says. Her voice is quiet. She is almost too nervous to speak at all, but after a moment, she adds a question. “Am I going to catch on fire?”

Mr. Schiff sighs.

“In my defense,” she says, “My competition is a potato.”

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The Chorus of Definition (1 of 1)

by Jenna on August 31st, 2004

The chorus of definition provides a fixed point in the chaos.

There is an endless sea between the Gibbelins’ Tower and the land, and crossing it there is a bridge. It creaks under Sebastien’s feet, and under the monster’s, as they walk. It is made of wood, and the railing is rope.

The silence between them is palpable but not eternal.

“I think that if you were not a monster, that you would be a physics teacher,” Sebastien says.

“Pardon?”

“It seems like you want people to be objects,” Sebastien says. “Inanimate and insensate processes of life. So I think that somewhere, you must love how objects work. If you were sane, then you would want to show others how cool objects are, and make that passion serve people rather than destroy them.”

“Ah.” The monster snorts.

Sebastien shrugs. “One knows certain things,” he says, “regarding one’s gods.”

As they walk, a star falls past. It strikes the water near them. There is a flare of light. Hot spray burns them both. They can hear a mewling. Sebastien stands at the edge of the bridge and looks down into the water.

“It’s a cynosure,” Sebastien says.

The monster follows. He looks down. There’s a thin and pale thing, covered in a sheen of ichor, splashing weakly in the water below.

“How useless,” answers the monster.

“Once upon a time,” Sebastien says. “Liars were honored. Did you know that? People wanted lies that would give them power and happiness at the minimum cost to the integrity of their lives.”

The monster frowns. His right hand brushes against his left-hand ring. Sebastien wavers, and his knuckles, gripping the rail, go white.

“Hm?” Sebastien asks, after a moment.

“Your description prioritizes an objective truth,” the monster says. “But we live, ultimately, in subjective worlds.”

“It’s just historical narrative,” Sebastien says.

“Ah.”

“See, cynosures like that one—they’re the children of those liars. They can’t tell the kinds of lies that make everything better. They just . . . give you a fixed point. Something to look at. A lie to hold up when everything else is chaos.”

“We call them the chorus of definition,” the monster says. “When we make them. They seem most valuable in bulk. And when they are not drowning.”

“Drowning is generally a bad trait in gods.”

The cynosure looks up at them. She whispers, “Help me.”

“I can’t,” Sebastien says. “The best I can do is ask you your name, and regret your passing.”

“I shone down on a girl,” the cynosure says, “and said that everything would be okay. But then it wasn’t. And I fell.”

“That’s a good name,” Sebastien agrees. “I’m sorry you’re drowning.”

“Come on,” the monster says. “We’re wasting time.”

It is the April of 2004.

“What did Martin say to you?” Sebastien asks.

“A handful of dust fell from his hand,” the monster answers. “‘This is a season of metal,’ he said.”

“Ah.”

The monster looks hollow and his eyes are tired.

“He suggested that I join the winning side.”

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Under the Ice

by Jenna on September 16th, 2004

Shelley travels to the North Pole to conduct a survey, and, also, to die.

The survey is about polar bears. Traditionally, polar bears receive their surveys by post, but this time, Shelley’s boss sent her north.

“Polar bear literacy rates are reported at 98%,” said Shelley’s boss. “I don’t believe those numbers. I think that many polar bears are ashamed to admit that they can’t read. Others, unable to read, eat our survey. It’s a tasty paper treat! We can fix the first problem with marketing—making it glamorous to admit one’s flaws. But to fix the second problem we need someone on the site. We need someone to go there and put the question to the polar bears directly!”

“Me,” said Shelley. Her voice was quiet and her affect blank. “Send me.”

“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed her boss, and hugged her. That’s one reason why Shelley is traveling north.

The other is that she’s had a hard life and she’s tired.

Shelley reaches the north pole and begins lining up polar bears. She administers the survey to each. It becomes rapidly obvious that very few polar bears can read. Some even try to eat her. Shelley does not want to live. But she clings to life. When they snarl and bite at her, she flees across the snow. Behind her, more civilized bears run interference, crying, “Without table manners, we are nothing more than animals! White furry animals! With teeth! Please, you must show restraint!”

Shelley does not hear. She runs, and runs, until the ice cracks beneath her feet and she falls into a cavern beneath the snow.

“I don’t deserve to live,” she says. “I have no value.”

A time passes, in the dark.

“But it’s very cold.”

So she lights a flashlight and looks around her. She’s in a great cavern, and all around her, in frozen sleep, they are.

“What are you?” she says. But she knows. This is a thing that was not meant to exist in her world.

She stands. She hobbles over. She stares at them.

They are princes in shining mail, and great beasts, and witches, and old women, and golden spindles. And there, to the left, is hers. Her prince.

She touches his frozen skin. “I had a wicked stepmother,” she tells him. “I ran from her, out into the forest, but you never came. She enchanted me, and for years I lived with that enchantment, and in the end she died and turned to ash and never the enchantment broke. And you never came.”

The prince is silent.

Shelley walks through that great cavern, and sees them all, and after a time, she tells them the story of that place.

“You were here before humanity,” she says. “Before people. When we were still rats and lemmings, you were here. And you fought others. The gnawing things from the Moon’s dark side. The unshaped things from the bottom of the sea. And you won. But the world grew cold.

“‘We shall die,’ said the princes, and the princesses with their golden hair, and the beasts that spoke, and the witches, and the frogs. ‘We shall die. The world grows cold.’

“And so you came to the coldest place of all and buried yourselves here. Not to die. Not truly. Simply to be.”

Shelley sits, leaning against an ice-pink unicorn. Its face is feral and wild.

“I do not think I can revive you,” she says. “I do not think anyone can.”

The unicorn is silent. Shelley’s prince does not move.

“I must die here,” she says. “People must never know. The universe cares more for us than I can bear, and that gift is frozen under the ice.”

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Morality Fable

by Jenna on October 8th, 2004

Refute is a city founded on firm principles of public morality.

There is a stone in the center of the city. It explains their beliefs.

“We are good people,” the stone says.
“We are loving people.”
“We are a people who together dispute the strong Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.”

It is a Whorfian who first discovers the ooze. His name is Mr. Whitfield. He is scruffy. He is smelly. He is in an old tattered brown suit. He is sleeping in an alley, near the sewer. The ooze rises.

“Hello,” he says, to the ooze. In addition to believing in the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Mr. Whitfield is drunk.

“Ssss,” hisses the ooze. There is a poodle nearby. The ooze eats the poodle.

“That was uncalled for,” says Mr. Whitfield.

“Ssss,” hisses the ooze.

Mr. Whitfield goes out to the mouth of the alley, where it intersects the street. “I say!” he cries. “Hello? There is a poodle-eating ooze here.”

People uncomfortably walk around him.

“Ooze,” Mr. Whitfield says. “It eats poodles. It probably eats people, too. I think it might be radioactive sewer waste or some form of ancient blasphemous god.”

Father Morgan looks at Mr. Whitfield sympathetically. He takes Mr. Whitfield’s hand in his. “I can see,” says Father Morgan, “that you’re a man who has lost your way.”

“Yes,” admits Mr. Whitfield.

“I can help,” says Father Morgan. “We can beat the demon of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis together.”

Mr. Whitfield shakes his head. “There’s another demon,” he says. “Closer. In the alley.”

Father Morgan looks distant. “Oh, my son. You haven’t been dealing in anecdotal evidence, have you? I know it feels good, but it’ll ruin your objectivity.”

The ooze strikes. Mr. Whitfield awkwardly rolls out of the way. The ooze eats Father Morgan.

People point. People scream.

“That Whorfian just killed somebody!” they cry. “With an ooze!”

Mr. Whitfield hangs his head. His shoulders slump. “This isn’t fair,” he says. Then he runs. But he can’t escape the police. Pretty soon, he’s under harsh lights, down at the station.

“Mr. Whitfield,” says Officer Samantha Brown. She taps the table with her nightstick. “Didn’t I tell you to stay out of trouble?”

“There’s substantial evidence for the strong Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis!” Mr. Whitfield blurts out. It’s a mistake. Samantha lunges across the table with both hands. She grips his collar. She shakes him.

“I don’t want to hear any of this filthy SSWisH talk,” she says. “A man is dead.”

Mr. Whitfield is terrified. He hangs limply from her grasp, and when she lets go, he sits down hard.

“Now, tell me,” she says. “Tell me what happened. Tell me how Father Morgan died.”

“He wasn’t actually my father,” Mr. Whitfield clarifies. “Or yours.”

Samantha blinks for a moment, then scowls. “I know,” she says.

“He was eaten by an ooze,” Mr. Whitfield says.

“An ‘ooze’,” Samantha says.

“Yes.”

“Can you describe this ooze?”

Mr. Whitfield thinks. “It’s . . .” He hesitates. “It was an atrocity against nature,” he says. “Blasphemous! Ungodly. Horrible.”

The cop looks down. She sighs. “Mr. Whitfield,” she says, “could you possibly give me a useful description?”

Mr. Whitfield thinks. “Are you familiar,” he says, “with the city of An-Meng, sad and broken An-Meng, An-Meng the Lost?”

Samantha shrugs.

“In 1998,” Mr. Whitfield says, “An-Meng learned that it was doomed, but it did not know why. It was the brightest city in this world, but death stalked it. Its lights dimmed. Its sounds faded. There was blood in the streets and pain in the shadows. It was a Utopia, but it did not endure, and they were never to know the shape of their ending.”

“I think I saw something about it on TV,” Samantha says. “It was in Canada or something, right?”

“Striving to understand the shape of their doom,” Mr. Whitfield says, “they came up with words like ‘etoplian’ and ‘scitterfisce’. This death was etoplian; the pall in the sky, scitterfisce; the rising tide of despair, midlipen. And their word for what I saw today was itserban. It was a very . . . itserbani ooze.”

Samantha’s nostrils flare. “‘Itserbani,’” she says.

“Yes.”

Samantha’s hands come palm-down on the table between them. The table shakes. “And you can’t,” she hisses out, “put that in terms I can understand?”

“It’s . . .” Mr. Whitfield founders. “It’s like an externalization of the inner demons and weaknesses of the soul. But it’s founded on a universal malignity—as if the god-demons of the universe were to express an ironic schadenfreude . . .”

“‘Schadenfraude?’”

“It’s German,” Mr. Whitfield says weakly.

“It’s beliefs like yours,” Samantha grinds out, “that destroy the fabric of society.” She rises to her feet. “I’ll come back when you’re ready to talk, and not to peddle your Whorfian filth.”

She leaves the room.

Mr. Whitfield rubs at his chin. “Really,” he says, “I can’t tell whether it was more of an itserbani ooze or a nameless cherklish god, its thousand-tined murkas cutting deep into the spingles of the world. It’s maddening!”

Samantha never comes back for him.

“I’d like some water,” Mr. Whitfield says. He pounds at the door. But no one comes to answer him.

He waits.

Then there is the ooze, pressed against the door.

“Are you the punishment for my sins?” Mr. Whitfield asks it.

The door hinges creak with the pressure of the ooze.

“It just seemed logical to me,” Mr. Whitfield says, “that language controls the human capacity for thought. I knew it was an unpopular version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. I knew it would ruin my life. But I thought that exploring its implications might be good for a lark. And then I was hooked.”

One of the door hinges pops.

“Do you . . . what do you believe, Mr. Ooze?”

Mr. Whitfield cringes in the corner of the room, as the door bursts down.

“Was I right?” he asks.

“I am not a conversational ooze,” says the itserbani beast.

Then it eats him.

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Before He Was Cool (I/I)

by Jenna on March 8th, 2005

Between the Earth and the Moon there is a world made entirely out of firewood. It’s five hundred miles wide and ten miles deep. It has lots of firewood animals and firewood cities and firewood people. It is an innocent world, a young world, but it is no paradise. It is a savage jungle.

Martin is born on March 22, 1995, at 6:38 pm, on a night of screams and fire, on a world above the world.

The first thing he ever sees is the monster’s face.

Martin ducks instinctively. He throws his forearms before his eyes. But then there’s a shock of recognition, and a wave of relief, and he laughs.

“Why, this is just a firewood monster,” he says.

The firewood monster adjusts its lacquered tie. “You be-long to me,” it says. Its voice is vaguely animatronic.

There’s the sound of explosions in the distance.

Martin’s in a little room made of firewood. It’s like the monster’s house. There’s a spider, which is a real spider. Everything else is made out of firewood: the belt, the archaic aversion therapy devices, the couch, the bookshelves, and the bottles of pills. There are weird white spots here and there on the wood, like some birch got mixed in with the rest.

“You be-long to me,” says the firewood monster again.

The whole world creaks. A crack runs through the floor, stopping short of Martin’s feet.

Martin grins wryly at the firewood monster, gives him a little wave, and opens the door. He steps out onto the street. Death looks him in the face. Death has a scythe. Death has a cloak. Death is a skeleton.

Martin almost steps back and slams the door. But then he understands, and he laughs.

“Why, this is just a firewood Death,” he says.

“Solve prob-lems through ex-tinc-tion!” declares the firewood Death. He sweeps his scythe at Martin. Martin ducks under it and kicks Death’s knee. Death’s knee cracks. Martin scrambles away.

“Even a firewood Death is dangerous!” he realizes. So he runs. He ducks into a barber shop. There’s a spinning red and white log outside, and a ghastly barber inside.

“I’ll shave your hair in-to a bowl cut!” the barber declares.

“You’re just a firewood barber,” says Martin nervously. He’s a thirteen-year-old boy. He doesn’t want a bowl cut, but he doesn’t want to fight a ghastly barber, either!

Then he sees the mirror.

His soul knows its truths. You are nothing, it tells him. A firewood boy. An isn’t.

“Oh, God,” Martin says.

A great shadow moves along the street. There are firewood screams.

Martin sits down. He covers his face with his hands. He thinks.

“I can-not shave your hair on the floor,” says the firewood barber. “There are al-read-y sha-vings on the floor.”

“I’m thinking,” says Martin.

The barber processes this unusual situation.

“Do not o-ver-heat your brain,” the firewood barber cautions.

“I’ll overheat if I want to,” says Martin, sulkily. But he doesn’t. Then he stands up. “Will you bless me?” he asks.

The barber is nonplussed and ghastly. “I am a bar-ber,” it says.

“I have to do something really hard,” says Martin. “And you’re the only person I know.”

The firewood barber hesitates. It is horrid and stodgy and animatronic and it is not a priest. “I would pre-fer,” it says, “to shave your hair.”

“You’re the only person I know.”

So the barber nods. It puts down its shaver and its bowl for the first time in its long existence. It takes Martin’s arms, one in each clumsy hand.

“Bless you,” it says. “Be well. Good luck. En-dure.”

Martin is a thirteen-year-old boy. He does not let his tears show. He does not hug the barber. He simply walks out. He finds the gate to the Underworld. He goes in.

His soul knows its truths. You are nothing, it tells him. A firewood boy. An isn’t.

It’s his destiny. It’s the law of his nature. It’s his dharma. It’s the truth of his soul that he can’t escape. But then there’s a realization and a decision and a wave of defiance and he laughs.

“Why,” he says, “you’re just a firewood dharma.”

Martin puts it aside and he descends.

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When a Bee Loves a Flower Very Very Much, It’s Time to Think of England!

by Jenna on May 19th, 2005

Stinger and Violet, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-
Crash.
. . .
Stinger and Violet, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-
Crash.
. . .
Stinger and—

“This is never going to work,” says Max Stinger, the glorious reconfigurable bee-human machine.

“It’s my chastity circuit,” frets Violet.

“No,” Max says. He reaches out to brush Violet’s metal brow. “Your chastity circuit is not breaking tree branches. That is our combined metallic weight. Your chastity circuit just supercharges your metal skin with painful electricity when we attempt hanky-panky and says, ‘Danger! Chastity mode engaged.’”

“Oh,” says Violet. “So that’s why you always leap away shaking your hands when it engages.”

Max nods sadly. “You didn’t know?”

“I thought it was just playful nervousness,” Violet says.

Max Stinger sighs. He looks away into the distance. “If we cannot sit in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G, we will have neither love nor marriage. And while your circuit functions, we may know no lust. Ah! Violet! Life is cruelly engineered!”

Violet reflects.

“What we need,” she says, “is some sort of anti-gravity belt.”

Max panics.

“No,” he says. “I mean, we don’t need that. We can use some sort of . . . a block and tackle, or . . .”

Violet looks at him.

“Max?”

Max deflates. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll ask him.”

“Why are you so afraid of my father?”

“I’ve heard he eats robots alive,” Max says. “On toast!”

Violet considers this.

“He’s too thin for that,” she says. “Robots are very heavy and would be totally indigestible without a lot of toast.”

“Fine,” Max says. “But I’m only doing this because he’s the best antigravity engineer on the planet! If he weren’t, I’d so keep on hiding from him until he died.”

“And then you’d pretend regret?” Violet teases.

“Darn right!”

Max stomps off.

Max goes to the old man’s house. He knocks on the door. After a moment, a wizened figure hobbles out to meet him.

“You? Who’re you?” The old man peers at him, up and down. “I didn’t make you,” he says. “Go away.”

“I’m Max Stinger,” says Max. “I’m interested in your daughter’s hand.”

“You’ve got bee hands!” declares the old man. “You don’t want a flower hand! That’d disrupt your overall aesthetic theme!”

The old man looks Max up and down. He lifts Max’s arms. He studies the transformation mechanism. He hits the back of Max’s knee with his titanium cane.

“Definitely not. No flowers for you. Look at those bee hands! They shoot off in a one-two punch of justice!”

“I mean,” Max says, after a moment, “in love. I am interested in falling in love with your daughter. But the branches keep breaking under our combined weight.”

“Oh no,” says the old man. “I’ve been down that road before. That’s why all my modern daughters have chastity circuits!”

“Pardon?”

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes genetic recombination using robot parts! That’s what the chastity circuits are for—to utterly remove the risk that irresponsible mechanical one-night stands will burgeon into tender affections and a long-term committed relationship! Honestly, you ought to know better.”

“But I’m not really interested in the irresponsible mechanical one-night stands,” says Max. His subvocalization circuit adds, Much. “I want love. I want marriage. I want robot children.”

“Listen,” says the old man. “How would you go about making children with my daughter?”

“Well,” says Max, “I guess that I’d take some of her design elements—kind of a robot genetic code, you know—and some of mine, and mix them together.”

The old man nods. “And?”

“Well,” says Max, “I’d innovate some. I mean, just so that junior wasn’t the same as every other transforming bee-human/flower-human robot hybrid out there. Like, possibly I’d add some sort of transformation that would let the first little boy become a supertanker, and the first little girl become—”

Max draws a blank as to what a girl might transform into. “A nuclear hawk-wolf,” he says, to avoid an awkward silence.

“Exactly,” says the old man. “You’d evolve. And evolution leads inevitably to humans being nothing more than glorified apes, which is precisely why we don’t let robots do it.”

“But . . .” Max founders. “You let computers evolve.”

“That’s totally different,” says the old man. “You can’t fight Moore’s Law. It’s hardwired into God’s plan. It’s part of the Telos.”

“Oh.”

Max hesitates. “If you’d make us a gravity-defying belt,” he says, “we could commit to a barren and childless marriage.”

The old man tilts his head to the side. “What, you’d never even be tempted? Tubes can be untied, son. Snips, unsnup. Mechanical clocks, they tick.”

“I’m a playboy,” Max Stinger tries, desperately. “I really just want to sow some wild oats in Violet!”

The old man snorts. “Don’t try to fool me, son. I can see the gleam of commitment in those polished titanium eyes.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll think of America!”

The old man hesitates.

“I will! Every time! I promise! I’ll think of nothing save America as our circuits mesh in glorious mechanical harmony, a rhapsody of patriotism and lust that will totally curtail any desire to differentiate my genes and spread my design principles to a new generation of competitive robot offspring!”

The old man sighs.

“Ah, damn,” he says. “You had to hit me in the patriotism.”

Stinger and Violet, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-
VRRRRRRM
S-I-N-G! First comes
VRRRRRRM
love, then comes marriage,
Then comes a frantic choral representation of the Star-Spangled Banner!
VRRRRRRM

“Somehow,” says Max Stinger, “I can’t help thinking that it would be easier to prevent robotic evolution through intelligent design.”

“Shut up and sing,” purrs Violet’s secondary speech processor. “It’s the third verse that’s the sexiest.“

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The Cantor

by Jenna on July 8th, 2005

An alternate history with small touches of data and humor. Do you think it would work?

The asylum is cold and its walls are damp.

Parvati sits in the cantor’s office. She is a tall, straight-backed woman with brilliant eyes. He is a well-respected cantor, with many degrees in the various sciences of mental health.

“Do you hear voices?” the cantor asks.

Parvati shakes her head.

“Smell things that maybe people around you can’t smell?”

“No,” Parvati says. “Except when their olfactory senses are not acute.”

“Have you ever felt,” inquires the cantor, “that the underlying mathematical reality of your mind was ill-defined?”

Now Parvati is suspicious. She recognizes this question as part of most standard mental health evaluations.

“I am not unduly concerned,” she hedges, “with the existence of thoughts that I possess but cannot prove that I possess.”

The cantor leans forward. He lifts his bushy eyebrows.

“Ms. Himavan, there’s no need to indulge in higher theory, here.”

“No,” Parvati says. “I feel adequately defined. It’s just . . . life is hard, sometimes.”

“Additively or multiplicatively?”

“Pardon?”

The cantor leans back. He picks up his cup of coffee. He sips. He thinks. “I mean, do the problems you’re having seem to accumulate linearly or geometrically?”

“Super-geometrically.”

Parvati laughs wryly. Then she holds up a hand when she sees the look in the cantor’s eyes.

“Just linearly,” Parvati says. “Sub-linear, really. I mean, the incremental gain seems to decrease each new day. It’s just that the limit function of the sum doesn’t seem to converge.”

“Is that why you chose to starve yourself? Because the limit function of your accumulated suffering might not converge?”

Parvati says, austerely, “I am starving myself to attract the favorable attention of a god.”

The cantor sighs.

“You know that’s not mathematically sound,” the cantor says.

“There are higher planes of mathematics,” Parvati says, primly.

The cantor opens his mouth to protest.

Parvati’s primness dissolves into an impish grin. “No, no, no,” she says. “It’s okay. I’m here. Prescribe your mathematics. I shall integrate it into my underlying worldview and see what transpires.”

The cantor smiles at her. “Well, it’s good that you’re willing to give it a try. Have you ever had ring therapy before?”

Parvati tilts her head. “Freud? Organizing sexual feelings into matrices and so forth?”

The cantor laughs.

“Oh, my,” he says. “No. Freud’s underlying analysis relied entirely on |R| being the second-largest infinite cardinal. We’re—”

Parvati interrupts him. “How did you say that?”

“|R|,” the cantor pronounces, carefully. “It’s the cardinality of the reals.”

“R,” Parvati says. “r. /R/. ?R?”

The cantor laughs. “|R|.”

“|R|.”

“In any case,” the cantor says, “Basic ring therapy consists of organizing your thoughts so that they perform predictably under addition and multiplication. For example, the thought ‘I am a person’ plus ‘I like apples’ sums to ‘boat’.”

“Boat,” says Parvati.

“Do you see how they add?”

“Boat!” says Parvati, despite the fact that this is not so much the sum of the the two thoughts as the third point of a right triangle formed by them in the plane of her transient epistemological context.

“Similarly, you can multiply ‘I am a person’ times ‘I like apples’ to get . . .”

Parvati attempts to think the first thought a number of times equal to the cardinality of the second.

“‘I like apples’ is a really big thought,” Parvati says.

The cantor considers.

“Perhaps you could multiply it by the singular sensation of waking up?”

Parvati’s hands spread reflexively.

“Wow,” she says. “It multiplies to form a somatic thought!”

“Very good!” says the cantor. He scribbles out a prescription for a book on basic ring theory.

“The nurse will come around and make sure you do your reading,” the cantor says.

Parvati hesitates.

“Does the fundamental undercomputability of the mathematics of thought,” she says, uncomfortably, “ever bother you?”

The cantor snorts, lightly.

“My dear,” he says, “if we let it bother us, there wouldn’t be any mathematicians, and people like you would still be getting ‘help’ from the engineers.”

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Never (II/IV)

by Jenna on September 14th, 2005

It is 1560 years before the common era.

“This is my curse,” Hera says to Leto. “You shall not bear your child on the mainland, or on any island, or on the sea.”

Leto is pregnant and her feet are sore. She thinks about this for a moment.

“That’s pretty much going to suck for me,” Leto concludes.

Which, as things turn out, it does.

It is 1317 years before the common era. There is a river that surrounds the world. It separates the whole good land from that which is not. There is a cupping fire that surmounts the world, a burning fulminating ether. Outside these things there are the sun, the moon, the stars.

And beyond them there is Never.

There is no path to Never. The maps that have survived from then that show the way have peculiar lacunae upon them. No matter how you chart the course, the landmarks do not line up, the data is inconsistent, you are led inevitably into the cartographer’s error and the point without continuance. There are some who laugh at the folly of the mapmakers of those days, and some who speak of conspiracy and secrets, and some who deny that there was ever a Never at all.

But it is there, burning in the sky, three thousand years ago and more, with its peaks and minarets and bats.

It is thinking of Never that Demeter falls from stormy skies to Delos, that island of stability at the chaos’ edge.

Leucippus is laying there on the sand of Delos’ beach. He’s coughing up water. He’s just tried to drown himself.

“There is no hope,” says Demeter.

She is wearing black. The wind makes angry sounds as it passes her, like a flapping tarp or a dragon’s wings.

“Granted,” says Leucippus. He does not recognize her.

Demeter blinks. Her eyes focus on him. “Pardon?”

“There is no hope,” Leucippus says. “Everything is madness. Here is how I know. This is Delos. It is a sacred island. It is the island where sweet Leto bore Apollo. Yet she cannot have borne him on an island. It is against the law that orders each and every thing. Thus I cannot trust Ananke; thus I cannot trust anything; thus I cannot even trust in the existence of the world.”

“It isn’t technically an island,” Demeter says. “It’s too small.”

Leucippus looks up. He stares at her steadily.

After a moment, Demeter laughs.

“Point taken,” she says.

“I can’t help but see how things really are,” says Leucippus. “It’s a curse from Apollo. Because I challenged him on matters of prophecy.”

“That was a mistake,” Demeter says.

“Yes,” agrees Leucippus fervently. “Yes, it was.”

Demeter hefts Leucippus up from the beach. She puts him down on his feet. She breathes and the air around him is full of the scent of corn.

“Come,” she says, and she walks out on the water.

“I didn’t know why it was a punishment at first,” says Leucippus. He walks out after her, onto the waves. “It didn’t make me very popular, of course. I mean, the girls were all bashfully upset at my truthful evaluation. Also, the men. And I really, really have to avoid temples. But I didn’t mind so much. Unpopularity is the curse of an honest man. No, the problem I had was with the world. With everything that just doesn’t make sense.”

“You don’t like contradictions?”

Just processing that question makes Leucippus hyperventilate.

“Uh,” he says, staggering.

“Here is one for you,” Demeter says. “Observe. My daughter, my bright fair daughter, she has been taken. There is no hope in all the world. Yet I am calm.”

“You aren’t calm,” says Leucippus. “You are indulging in a patch of detached madness.”

“Pshaw,” summarizes Demeter, waving the matter away.

“Am I going to die?” Leucippus says. “Because, honestly, I’d rather die than spend any more time contemplating Delos. So I won’t mind. But I’d hoped, in a distant corner of my mind, that instead of drowning I’d get sucked down into a whirlpool and cast up on some distant island populated by beautiful maidens, deep-bosomed like yourself. So far, what with your mad despair and such, the portents do not seem good.”

“There is no hope,” Demeter says, somewhat ambiguously.

Demeter looks upwards.

“Listen,” Demeter says. “In all the span of the world, there is no hope for me. I have for some years known that this would happen; that the Son of Cronos would have her taken from me. And what is done, in this matter, cannot be undone. There is no hope for me. So neither is there hope for you. That is Ananke. That is Necessity.”

“Alas,” says Leucippus.

“Still,” says Demeter, “I will be gracious, and say this much: when Leto found it, Delos was no island.”

“Was it a giant fish?” says Leucippus. He is practically sagging with relief. There is a beautiful peace spreading across his face. But it is tentative. It is a peace that’s scared to stay. “Because I thought there might be an exception regarding giant fishes. But the island’s shape was wrong.”

“It was a minaret of Never.”

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