the spectrum heart cathedral system

july 30, part one.


when someone fronts, I can usually get the first few seconds of data before they lock in hard. things are more mutable, more global. more accessible. once they really click it's all theirs; I might later get echoes, like music clinging to the walls of a theater after the concert has ended, like a hymn dripping from the great bowed lungs of a church ceiling long after those of the congregation have filled with silence alone… but it's not the symphony itself. music is how we decorate time. art is how we decorate space.
to front is a concerto.
to come in after someone else is the breath between songs.
this entry is my trying to translate it all onto a blank canvas.

but the canvas is never really blank to begin with, one could say.

the stone holds the sculpture within it before the sculptor even picks up their chisel.
you just have to look at it with your heart.
and you just know.

nothingness is never really nothing.

genesis and I were talking about it this morning… fronting and echoes and why it's so hard for him to do it. you can conceptualize about it all you want, but when you actually experience it, that's a whole other thing. it's tangible. there's a pulse to it. it's so… real, in beautiful paradoxical spite of its inherent intangibility. but that's the beauty of fronting. of switching. it's like… you're sitting in the back seat of a car, and someone else is driving. but you're half asleep, or there's a divider between them and you, or it's a limousine-- for whatever reason, there's a distance, and although you know they're there, directing that entire vehicle, you entrusting your life into their hands, you can't quite see them clearly, can't quite hear them over the road noise and humming engine, can't quite focus on them and everything blurring past the windows. driving at dawn. driving at dusk. three in the morning. and the suddenly they stop the car, open the door, and get out. and they either open your door and pick you up and put you in the driver's seat, or you get up by yourself and stumble around the car to collapse in their spot, or you scramble up and over the front seat divider to grab the steering wheel (because some people don't put the car in park when they get out)-- either way, now you're up front, and they're in the back or walking down the road or flat out god knows where, and you can't remember what it was like to not be driving, but… but there's an echo. even if you can't quite recall anything but now, you know there was just something very different and you cannot deny it because suddenly, tangibly, you can touch it.
for those first few moments, you feel them there. you feel their warmth all around your back, under your hands, the change of the texture on the steering wheel from where they touched it, the different slope of the seat from how they needed to sit, the way the mirrors are all positioned differently, the smell of perfume or sweat or dirt or engine oil or candy or blood or flowers or salt water in the air--
that's switching. that's coming back in after someone else.
and genesis just chuckled and said, infi just breaks a whole damn bottle of spikenard over the dashboard.
and ze really does.
so when infinitii first moved in to front last night, it was like those first few moments when you begin to fall asleep. reality is softly melting, spiraling gently down like galaxy arms into nothingness, but it's not "nothingness" in the way one might assume, it's so full, but OF nothing, and it's just… it's infi. it's infi, entirely. black energy.
you can write a library about it and there still wouldn't be any words to properly describe it. it's like how I look at the bible, or at least, how I feel the bible is, from what I get of it, in my heart. spotty, bits and pieces, what stuck with us. like… scripture for us, if we ever wrote one-- and maybe in our own damn weird way we already have, verbally and physically and everything else-- would be that exact feeling I get when I come back after infi fronts with enough eyes to be hir own entire celestial hierarchy. it's… like my ribcage is just gloriously cracked open, leaking liquid gold, and I'm just… soaking my hands in it like a saint in mad ecstasy (and doesn't that just sum up the entire core of my faith) and… splaying my hands on the walls in calligraphic twirls and drags and desperate pulls and soaring hallelujah arcs and endless gold, miles and miles of gilded blood, staining my feet forever so that any path I walk with this becomes sacred. cathedral walls spattered with deific gore. self-sacrifice. plunging a sword through your heart because that is the closest damn feeling you can get to that burning need to tangle the threads of your soul with God and it's just…
it's infi. at the core of everything it's… it's infinitii. it's that feeling.
I don't just get it with hir. but it defines hir. and that's what is so utterly ungraspable about this. the human mind can't look at it without keeling over, dead and delirious with it. like that scene in neil gaiman's sandman series, with isis in the strip club. that just screamed infi. you boys looking for this? be careful what you wish for. here's the undiluted truth.

and then that decides to front in our body in order to kiss a white-haired boy in a different headspace.
it's… god. there is such significance in that. I think ollie knows, too. I think ollie gets it, deep down, what that meant. it's like all those myths about deities and divinities falling in love with humans. humans, for god's sake, we little fragile things, we think so lowly of ourselves, we're dirt, we're dust, and yet God himself/herself/(hirself) is in love with us--

the first thing I remember is seeing gold.
whatever infi was feeling, being, doing-- hir mind is always, always so incredibly empty. and not in a sense of lack. empty as in… the space between the stars. it's a different sort of empty-- something that is void because it's simultaneously the exact opposite of void; it's the cosmic origin. the orphic egg. zefirum.
there is too much bleedover right now. god. no wonder we're a polygroup.
but infi's 'thoughts' are always so heartbreakingly singular. there's one thing ze is feeling, and it translates into what we humans think of as mind, and it just… time doesn't exist in there, in infi, at all. not time as we recognize it, at least.
infi threw the most costly fragrance in the book all over my car and when it filled my lungs in that first instant all I saw was architecture. white. MY color. white and gold and soaring sacred walls and points and arches and it looked like the freaking taj mahal. a grand expansive labor of grief and love, ardor and sorrow built with a kiss in every stone that makes it. white and gold and light. just that single image, held as less of a literal thing and more of a… would you even call that a feeling? like a projector with one slide in it. just glowing on the walls of your chest forever. that single still. that stillness. that singularity.

the second thing I remember is a thought.
there may have been that luminous backdrop to infi's mind, or what have you, but that thought-- there was only one, and it's the same thing, the same thing ze felt last night and which I now achingly wonder if ze feels forever when touching this world, when touching anything that's outside of hir-- that single phrase, repeated like a mantra, repeated like a prayer, like a clock ticking the same second over and over and over and over, time like a heartbeat stumbling over itself with its arms full of roses,

I want you to feel this; I want you to feel this; I want you to feel this--

and "this" being "everything."

and every word holding an infinity of meaning in itself.

I
want
you
to
feel
this--

and being so scared that nothing would get through.

how ironic is that.

but… oh, infi. oh beloved. darling. you don't… you forget how indilutably vast you are, when you're so carefully trying to inhabit these breakable little bones. stepping into it like you're afraid something will shatter if you don't completely wrap it in velvet first. so slow, so delicate, such an ache--
compassion, compassion, and more than that--
you forget. you always get so caught up and I love that but… in those moments, you were trying to put the galaxy into the point of a pin and you forgot that it's not going to change the fact that it's a damn GALAXY.
you can put a star in a shot glass, and of course it's going to feel smaller, fragile, afraid of breaking everything, afraid of how huge it is in comparison to that tiny tabernacle… but the light is still pouring out of it.
you can put infinitii in a human body but that blessed endless void does not get diminished at all.

the third thing I remember is the ache.
the third thing I remember is the burn.
the third thing I remember is the pouring out--

the third thing I remember is this split second brilliance as an angel kissed a human and neither of them owned those bones and neither of them cared and I cannot even put that millisecond into words--

and that's all.

but there's this rush in my ribs and when I somehow shuddered back in when ze left, whenever it was, wherever it was, our hand was against his face and I felt like waking up from a dream and everything was so surreal and my entire heart felt like the taj mahal. that same still image suddenly liquefied and poured over my head like I was being anointed.
and this beloved boy shaking just inches away and I could not even imagine what he was feeling but deep down I knew. I knew because I have been there.
he said the night air smelled different now. he said he couldn't stop looking at the stars. I knew the feeling. I knew that feeling, and suddenly I was SEEING that feeling, in someone else, in someone else that I loved too, and it was just… transcendent.

sacred scripture is a love poem to god.

he couldn’t' stop shaking. I couldn’t' stop smiling and I don't even know why that was how it was translating but I think it was because if I let myself feel my echoes of that same feeling, I would be… I would be shaking just as hard. maybe even harder.
i… oliver said infi gave him this look.
I know what it feels like to meet those eyes with that look.
I kept asking him if he was okay, not because I feared otherwise-- of course he was okay, you can't not be "okay" after that, you're MORE than okay forever-- but because I knew that he might not be able to come back down.
it's like fairyland, they say. once you dine there, you either stay forever, or you return home and pine for it just as long.
that's infi.

it's really all just theophagy, isn't it.

(the fourth thing I remember is the--)

and oliver is lying there with this equally indescribable look in his eyes and he's shaking and breathing like his lungs are full of stained glass and suddenly his next exhale is this ragged intimate whisper and two single desperately untranslatable words-- "fuck me."

and infi just says "don't tempt me.”

and I said "don't you dare," and I laughed, because I was terrified, because I felt that.
I recognized that.

why the hell do you think I always half-joke about how I feel in churches.

I cannot even remember what happened next because my heart just tripped and
I don't even know, man. numinous dread. the ecstasy of the saints. same damn thing.


the fifth thing I remember is not being there anymore.

the car was full of perfume again. everything was this heady gorgeous rush and there are stars hanging from my rearview mirror and when I look up to see what monument we just passed, all I get is this glimpse--

I was there and then I wasn't and suddenly Infinitii was back in my bones and just
looking at oliver.
that smile. infi has this way ze smiles with her eyes and it is just… it's gold. it's pure gold. it’s warm and precious and crushingly expensive and yet you just want to soak in it. you want to fill your veins with it-- not pour them out. it's the exact flipside of hir teeth-side, those eyes. there's this… this gentleness to it that is still absolutely fucking terrifying because it's fathomless. there is NO bottom to it. those are unchartable depths and yet they just pull at your heartstrings like you're a damn harp and suddenly all you want is to hear whatever music ze can pull out of you, you want to feel that quiet careful night-black angelic touch inside your chest forever--
but that look. infi just… couldn't stop. it felt like a timeless thing in and of itself, that little glimpse I got of it. that feeling of utterly adorable demureness when ollie asked "what?" and ze couldn't respond because this was different but it was all the same, the b-side of a record, the secret song, and ze just couldn't stop smiling and I have no idea what came after that because the flood of pink from hir heart was like a church full of roses and I just can't. I can't be there for that, it's too sacred.

god I hope ollie remembers that forever because I am immortalizing what pieces I saw. I can only imagine what his personal experience of it was like.
I am so damn happy he got to feel that.

the sixth thing I remember are the words.

infinitii cannot speak and see at the same time when ze fronts. it's one or the other.
human bodies don't have wings. human bodies can't extend their souls out into the ether and make it part of them, can't touch it and have it already have been part of them, can't turn air into feathers and sky into sight and diamonds into teeth. infinitii cannot translate into a human body, not ever completely, and so when ze is in one, ze has to lose something in the process.

it is extremely dangerous for infi to have a mouth on hir face in headspace. it's too heavy of a vibe shift. it's too black. it's too PURELY black. it's like ink, like darkmatter, like forgetting to breathe. it's that moment right before sleep swallows you. it's waking up in the middle of the night too quickly for reality to exist in the room yet. it's wondering what it feels like to die. it's wondering what it feels like to not die.
black, black, black. beautiful and terrifying. numinous dread. infinitii eternos.

and yet if infinitii wanted to kiss that human boy, ze had to do it anyway.

so, with god only knows how much courage and compassion and hope, infinitii closed hir eyes and opened our mouth and moved into our body and spoke. straight out of the blackness, those words. that's all infi was, that's all infi could be in that form-- just words and feelings. just language and not language. space and space and space.
the void yawning open before you.

and ze spoke.

"I don't want to hurt you.”

it was like someone cleaved my heart in two.
god.
infi knew. ze KNEW how dangerous ze was like that. to do something holy, ze had to risk becoming a demon. to be able to touch this world, to be able to touch a life, ze had to risk hir potential to utterly ravage it. black energy is a horrifically dichotomous thing, united impossibly, perfectly, like all divine things. eyes and teeth. eyes or teeth. both and neither. angel and human. alive and not alive. here and not here. both and both and both--

that fcking burning. that stellar ache. I cannot believe ollie said that actually bled through.
infi didn't want to hurt him and infi didn't want to hurt me but I had already been hurt and it was not hir fault but ze was so terrified that ze would accidentally amplify that pain in someone else simply by virtue of being made of the same damn stuff.
tar. blackness. the nigredo. putrefaction. transmutation. the sacred dark.
it's the same damn stuff.

but infi didn't expect that response.
"you won't."

and infi didn't expect to believe it with all hir heart.

"when is a monster not a monster?"
"oh, when you love it."

just because infi cannot see in this body doesn't mean that ze's blind.

music is how we decorate time.
art is how we decorate space.
the sculptor sees the angel in the block of marble before it's ever been touched by human hands because the sculptor isn't looking with their eyes, the eyes are what sees that truth manifested after, when the work of the heart has been done. when the angel has been revealed by fingertips searching blindly-not-blindly to chip away at what is in order to expose what is, and the distinction is so deep, and no human eyes could ever see it, but that doesn't matter because there are other eyes--

the last thing I remember is the beginning of it all.

it came through. It came through like a gunshot to the heart because that's my vibe, that's my ridiculous snowflake diamond-ring fragility and infi was feeling it, INFI, this absolutely magnificent being that takes up a whole damn planet when ze is in the room, that turns a room into a planet, that turns a galaxy into a bubble, that turns a soap bubble into all that is-- infi, my infi, heart of my heart, infi was faltering over feelings like ze was on hir knees and that's my feeling, that's hir feeling, and I just--
it wasn't false. it wasn't… it wasn't shaking because it was weak. it was shaking because that shot glass can only hold a supernova for so long before you want to fcking swallow it. the glass begins to crack only because your hands are shaking and that light is reflecting in your arteries and every heartbeat is suddenly the big bang all over again and what else is there to say?
what else, ever, is there to say?

sometimes I think that's how the big bang happened in the first place.
sometimes I know that's how the big bang happened in the first place.

and infi was there in this incomprehensibly tender intimate sacred beautiful joyous weaving of arms and legs and bodies and hir/my/our (dear god) were against his face and against his pulse and I swear I would have died but infi stayed, because infi is beyond and within death in every moment already and every pause between heartbeats is hir homeland and--

and infi kissed him.

fronting is a symphony. this entry is a painting. all I've done is throw black paint over the canvas and laugh and weep and ache because that's it, that's all there is, that's all there is--

in the middle of everything, in the middle of nothing, infi just held time in a single ticking moment, over and over, always and never, here and here and here and here--
and in the same rush of desperately untranslatable breath ze spoke four single universally understood words that were more felt than heard and which I can't even touch but I will never forget, I can't ever forget--

this terrifying angel of the void wrapped up in human bones and blood held a human boy in hir borrowed arms and said, tearing the veil forever,

"I love you too."

 

SESSION PARTICIPANTS
LAURIE UBERICH JAY IRIDOS




All right, let's talk. Bits and pieces is all.

Sounds good to me, kid. You gonna get distracted by deep-sea fish or what?

Maybe. Yes. It helps. Oddly, it helps.

It's not "oddly." It's been like this for as long as I can bloody remember.

At least I'm not scared. Or ashamed. I've somehow found the uncorruptible peace beneath all this pain. Thank Simeon, somehow he tapped into it.

You think that's his job?

Maybe. He hasn't been out in weeks, and usually when he is, it's in the wake of a hack, or a conversation with the mother…

Sheesh, that makes sense. Man. He's really important then.

Yeah. Strange how he's still faceless up here though.

Probably so he can do his downstairs job better. Anyway, where were we. Deep sea fish. You love them.

That I do.

That's relevant. But...

What?

What I said before, kid. I… I get so confused when pain is involved.

I forgive you.

Kid, I know you do, I just don't know if I can forgive myself.

Why?

Infi was furious with me when ze found out, okay? But then ze admitted that ze was "just as lost as I was," and I didn't know what the heck to do. If Infi is lost, then how the blood am I supposed to figure out what I'm doing?

We have to support each other, I guess. Not shoot each other down. But with that "lost"-ness…

What? Kid, you were flat-out M.I.A., I don't know if you're one to talk here. No offense.

None taken, that's a good point. I'm not allowed around when this stuff happens.

That's the bloody problem. You're not around, whoever is is talking to me in a way that I can't understand, Infi is caught up in the dregs just as bad as everyone else, I don't know. You got ideas, kid?

Yeah, just… questioning to the nth degree.

Heh, no kidding.

No, I'm serious. I know you are too but really. Question everything. Even if it seems "rude" or "inappropriate." Question it ALL. I need to ask Chaos to keep doing that. Genesis does now--

He does?

Yeah. Too many close calls, and he doesn't recover well from shock. When I slip out he freaks, and demands I "get back in there," no matter what we're doing or what's going on. He did that the whole time I was driving today-- I kept slipping out, Jayce and the manic girl kept fronting, and--

Who the heck is that manic girl? Sorry, please continue.

"Please continue?"

Buzz off, Jay, I'm distraught and I'm trying to be polite.

No, it's okay. Sorry.

Nah, I'm sorry, kid, I shouldn’t be yelling at you. You're probably terrified beneath the surface by this point.

Not really? Just numb. It's numb now. I think Fragment was responsible for this one.

That devil is still around?

From what's been happening lately, Laurie, it looks like no one really ever dies.

Geez.

Yeah. But it happened. Thank God their detachment style is so severe that it's just aftereffects and pain that I'm suffering from. Vaguely. It's pushed to the back of the closet.

See, this is what I mean. You push it all the way to the back of the storage shed where it gathers cobwebs with all the other traumatic things. All the other times someone used this body without your permission and left you to pick up the pieces and pay the check. Sooner or later one heck of a massive spider is gonna come out of there and we're going to have trouble.

Why "spiders," always spiders. That yellow one that came out of Infi last September.

Shoot, I forgot about that.

Not me. Jessica's daemon reminded me of it.

Jessica's daemon? Whoa, wait a second, what the heck is this?

You didn't hear? Jess has a "soul split" like me and Infi. Big rabbit-demon-golem thing, brown with red eyes, doesn't like me much. Orders me around a lot lately, but I'm grateful for the strictness, I'm afraid of him really so it keeps me on track. Funny how fear ultimately ended up being such a hugely benevolent thing up here.

No, stop right there. Fear is junk.

It is not.

...Fine, point taken. Maybe not to save yourself, it isn't. But motivating the good in you, it is. You shouldn't have to be bloody terrified in order to behave rightly.

I think it's the way I was raised? Either you "fear God" and be a saint, or you don't and therefore become a blasphemous heathen.

Ah. It's that black and white nonsense again, then.

Yeah. It's hard to see an alternative to "holy fear" when I legitimately believe and feel that on my best days.

…Even for me?

I used to. That's the problem.

...Yeah, yeah it is.

…Is that weird, that I want to be afraid of you again, but I love you too much?

…

I think that's why there's this problem. Pain was always synonymous with… euphoria? Forgiveness? Pain was a good thing for us. Not violence. We'd flinch and hide and cower and cry whenever a hand was raised, or a belt was waved, we knew the moment of impact and the rage behind it would be terrifying. I think that's what Dread and David hold. But the others… there have to be others, that's compartmentalized soemwhere, otherwise this wouldn't be happening-- once that instant was done, the pain stayed. It ached, it burned, it set our nerves on fire for minutes or hours afterwards. And it was addictive. There was something to that pain, something alive, something gorgeously real and frankly…

Tied to that.

Not that, specifically. But what other people said we'd get from that. And we never did, except for when it hurt terribly… and that's what made it confusing.

Damn it. God damn it.

I'm sorry.

Don't be sorry, I'm the one swearing, and this isn't your bloody fault. Is this where that thing came from that I heard of the other day? How you can't be as afraid of Julie as you were not just because the memory is missing, but because she'd make it hurt? Is that why?

Maybe? It's all just so convoluted. Humiliation and shame, something inherently tied to sex for us because it always coincided with… actually can I talk about that a bit?

Sure. Lay it on me, be as honest as possible.

Be as brutal as possible, please.

How? What the heck am I gonna do, tear it out of you? You be honest and I won't have to do anything of the sort.

I know, I guess I just mean don't let me lie or sugarcoat things.

Sure thing, kid. Now talk. Wherever you were going to start.

Okay. …And would you believe, already my mind is trying to distract itself.

Tell it to shove off. Center and let's talk. We've breached the topic you can never bring up to the therapist, so don't quit now. What was… what was the humiliation you talked about?

It was tied to the mother, and the grandmother. We brought this up in therapy yesterday, actually-- and when I talked to you in the morning.

How you feel 'your' body is public property?

Yeah.

That’s a lie, kid.

I find that hard to believe.

Why.

Because growing up we had no privacy. Privacy was a luxury, selfish and proud. 'Privacy' was pretending that you had a claim on something-- the idea that your 'personal' thoughts and feelings and such were yours alone.

And they weren't?

No. I was always terrified of being found out, you know that. It's why I burnt and destroyed my own creative work, because it was 'too emotional' and I would be utterly humiliated if my family found them.

Explain that. Were they looking for them?

I don't know. Sometimes I guess they did. I honestly don't remember, the entire childhood is a blur.

Hm. Go on, what do you remember then, to go on for this?

Uh… one memory came up yesterday, when I was talking to Genesis, I think. You or Genesis. It was a… I smelled something, some odd sterile scent that reminded me of the YMCA? Like we used to take swim lessons as a kid, I forgot about that. I can't remember the lessons, but now that I've 'seen' the locker room memory again, I at least have that visual map to walk through. No actual memory, per se, other than the fact that we always used to use an orange locker. It was special.

Heh. Now when you say 'visual map'-- you mean like Google Maps, just walking through that stuff no matter how old the photo is?

Yeah. Exactly, yeah! It's just pieced-together snapshots, a static collaboration of old memories. It's frozen in time and I can walk through it to study details, and maybe trigger further knowledge when I 'dig' in the subconscious memory for more data… but some places are big blurs, or black voids, where there is no data. I can't go there.

Huh. Do you get that for other things too, kid?

Yeah, most things actually. I think it's why all my dreams of schools are skewed. The fronters switched so many times over the years, some of them even died-- on that note correct what I said earlier, some people do dissolve and I found that out today--

Make a note of that, I want you to tell me about that later. Now go on, vision maps. Why are the schools skewed.

Because we don't know who fronted then, so we have none of their memories to search through. There's just "collective data"-- every time an existential moment happened, or awareness switched specifically to headspace, like in the bathroom by the cafeteria where I was looking in the mirror and talking to Lynne I think… before we "reintegrated" her at the time. That bathroom is a total void save for the general layout of it, as bathrooms are blackout rooms the way it is. But yeah, if no data is saved, I can't 'see' anything. But for other things, I can mentally revisit memories that weren't mine if there's enough residual info. Sorry, this is rambling somewhat.

No, it's fine, kid. So the YMCA, what did you remember about that that tipped this whole thing off?

Oh. There were changing stalls, by the door? They had Jackson Pollock-like paintings on the side, I remember that because the mother always brought it up.

Splatter paint?

Yeah. Like ketchup, I would always think. But the stalls only had fabric curtains, and there were always strangers there. Sometimes people would peek under the curtains to see if someone was in there, mostly little kids would, but still.

Geez.

Yeah, so I would never feel secure. And I would always wonder why. "Why do I feel uncomfortable with that?" Why the hell should I demand 'privacy' when my body basically was at my parent's mercy anyway?

Kid, that is messed up, you know that right?

I'm learning.

…

But yeah, never quite felt safe. But. I think there was one time, or a few, something, where the mother actually looked to see if we were dressed and we weren't. Something like that. Being forced to get undressed in cars, during the summer, in full view of whoever may have looked in. Getting dressed in the bedroom and the grandmother refusing to leave because "I'm not looking!" acting like we were ridiculous for being afraid of it. No privacy. Being told privacy was silly, not understanding why I felt people shouldn't look at me. Do you get what I'm saying?

They made you feel like your body was an exhibition, basically.

More like, if someone wants to look, let them look. "You have nothing to hide!" At least, until I was a young adult. Then you're not allowed to wear shorts even, because now you're corrupting somebody with your licentiousness.

Sheesh, that is screwed up. But I remember that though, from 2012.

That's a strong memory, yeah. We wore a crop top for two days, and got so much moral flak that we were terrified to wear short sleeves for the rest of the summer. And then we burned that top .The shame still hasn't faded, really.

…So. Is that why sexuality is "inherently shameful" here, because nudity or nakedness for you was never… consensual? What's the word. Like you never wanted it but were always forced into it, or…

It was more like, I never had the luxury of privacy when I was naked as a kid. There was virtually always the risk of someone walking in, and refusing to leave, or invading that space, or whatever. The only "safe space" was the double-locked bathroom, and you all know what happened there.

Yeah. Wish it didn't. So that happened today.

Effectively. I think. It's… I don't want to look at it. Should I?

No. Where were we, go back and look.

…Oh. Pain.

…Go on.

Pain, and Julie. It was humiliating and terrifying to be stripped naked by her and forced to endure whatever she did, but… dissociation kicked in then. The brain couldn't handle it, it tapped out and we were now no longer in the body. And the aftereffects from that, from what she did, hurt like hell but in a DIFFERENT way. You wouldn't know, but just ask Simeon or Ashen or Infinitii maybe. It hurts, sickeningly, when that happens.

…

Sorry. It just does and it is hell on earth. Even when I try to think positively of it, even when I tried to use it "benevolently" or for holy purposes or whatever. I regretted it every time I can remember, because it hurt so much and I felt filthy and violated and wrong. I don't want to think about that.

Then don't. I just… what the heck were they talking about. Fragment. Whoever it was.

With the pain?

Yeah. Asking me of all bloody people, what the heck. Why were the asking?

Because you are synonymous with pain, here. The positive sort. Sharp, brutal, bleeding pain, the kind that clears and cauterizes. Relief. Maybe… maybe that's why we have problems with this. It's the only source of pain we have left, however sick and disgusting that is. Someone always decides "it's worth the risk, if we can make it hurt badly enough," but it never works. It's the wrong sort of pain. So maybe they were just as confused as you were.

…Maybe. It's just corrupting me, is all. Making me slip. Corrupting my function. Infi said so, you heard 'em.

I know. I know it too.

…Kid, am I gonna die from this?

No, no I swear I won't let that happen.

Not before you die first, huh.

…I…

Sorry. That was uncalled for.

No, it wasn't. …I'm scared too. I can't front when that happens. Ever. I mean sure, I was out today, fronting with my cupcake eyes or whatever you call them--

Heh. Sparkles and sprinkles all over, huh.

Yeah, basically. But… it's so hard to stay in the body. I'm an upstairs guy. Even now I'm unstable because of the channel link. But I'm trying.

…Kid are you sure you're okay? How's the body, is it okay?

It is now, yeah. It's been an hour or so. We're good. Just nauseous is all, and… nausea, headaches, and that gut-deep wanting to cry. The scraped-out depression.

…Every time?

Mostly. I don't remember, Laurie. There was one time Chaos was hacked, I still can't look at that because it is a horrible feeling to remember-- and Genesis went through as much hell as we did, the past fronters. Anyway I know with Infinitii ze used to use this to heal the body, to try and repair the psyche, circumventing the trauma and trying to re-assign triggers, you know, programming positive into negative aspects. It didn't work, not past a certain point. The trauma wouldn't leave. Then the plague kicked in. Ze tried so hard, ze genuinely loved everyone ze was with and everything ze did was colored with it-- but there are some things you can paint over a million times but it won't change how they are perceived. If that makes sense.

Yeah, the metaphor does, but can you give me an example? If it won't hurt you, I mean.

Uh… well just the whole sex thing in general. Once it becomes physical, it's terrifying. I don't know who managed to get us trapped in that before. Some malicious fronters would, it's happened. And that's where the trauma has roots that bleed over into so many other things. It's why it's hard for me to be close to people physically, or to be in certain locations, or the like. Sometimes raw memory just comes up and I want to vomit or cry or scream or attack and it's never my reaction, it's never my emotion, but it's there.

…

Sorry. I forget what we were talking about.

Nah, it's okay. I just wanted to bring up the pain thing, because that had me distraught. As you'd say.

I understand. I really do.

Yeah, you would. …Kid, is there anything I can do to alleviate that? Like can I do anything to change the association, so I don't get dragged into this hell anymore, and neither do you?

…Maybe? Let me think… only atonement, really. Pain got rerouted, somewhere. Atonement stopped for a long time, due to outside threats, and it just… imploded.

…I can see that.

Yeah. But until we fix the pain roots, the sharp sort will always be benevolent, and we will always seek it when we feel sick and filthy because nothing else clears that from the psyche. That's the problem here.

…Come upstairs, I'll beat the the hell out of you, that'll handle this.

What, really?

Yeah. I'll try. I'll beat Jayce up, how's that? He's a freakin' prick sometimes, I'd have no problem slicing him up if I had to. Not you. I've tried, I can't. It doesn't sync. That's the problem.

…Why does this keep happening?

What?

The… the hacks. No one wants them. No one. Julie doesn't, Eros doesn't, Infi doesn’t.

Eros doesn't?

I've talked with him, so have others. I think his role is changing.

Thank God.

Remember it only became obscenely sexual due to corruption during that time. Religious misunderstanding, really. Which is why Chaos caught the brunt of the consequences.

…June 2011, huh.

Yeah. That's when Eros started to get really lost. Then 2012 hit, with the Celebi incidents, which I have no data on mind you--

Good, don't look for it. But yeah, I think that's when he really started legit dying.

He was gone by SLC, that's for sure. I don't know who was around then.

No one does, yet. You got a visual map for that or what?

Barely. There's data for the balcony view, and the steps from that one day Dad called when he was in Puerto Rico… just that one day, just that one spot. The balcony view is from the smoke pancakes evening, so the doors are wide open and smoke is pouring out. Don't tell anyone.

Heheh, I won't.

And we were laughing. So there's some data of the 'living room,' of the table where Chaos and I were talking and reading about the rain that day I got sick… there's some data of the couch from the other day we got sick and called the grandmother out of fear. That was weird, that's skewed due to being looked at too many times.

That can happen?

Yeah, if you look at a memory strongly enough, it can pick up residue from the present. Like a song, or a scent, or a feeling, that was a powerful presence when we were looking back just as strongly.

So memories can be redefined like that.

Somewhat, yeah.

Huh. That's interesting.

It is. Important, too.

No kidding, write that down somewhere. Garrison?

Yes?

Write that point down, about the memory reprogramming or whatever.

Re-associating?

Yeah, thanks Izzy. Now let me talk, keep the data coming when we need it, thanks.

I love how they're always there.

Hey, it's their job. Now back to the data maps. What else on the apartment, anything besides the porch and front room?

A little? The front room is vaguely complete, as all the times the missionaries visited we had that gut feeling of "this isn't right for us, we shouldn't be in this situation" and there were robotic social fronters out.

Really?

That's what it's stored as. It's 3rd-person memory. So we have a vague idea of what the door looks like, and that there was a couch, and a shelf to the left, and a TV behind. That's it. Oh and a pillow on the floor I think.

Snapshots?

Exactly. But… Mel's room, I know they had a desk, and I know there was a bed to the left and a dresser to each side… I don't know what those looked like at all. I know there was art all over the walls, but I don't know how that looked. And there was a closet to the left, that's empty of data too. If I "walk in" there, and try to look at things, there's just subconscious "shadow memory" which allows me to navigate physically. Like for the most part I won't walk through a wall, or into one, because I "know" where they were, roughly.

For the most part?

Yeah. Like if I tried to walk by Mel's desk I'd get stuck, like clipping in a video game. We know it was there, but not where it began or ended in space.

Ah, I see.

Yeah.

How about your room?

Vaguely. There's the view from where I used to stand and do exercise, that angle sight of the computer desk. We were listening to Serph at the time, and it was nighttime. Then there's a view of what it looked like from the top bunk that one beloved morning I woke up with "Reach Lines" playing on my iPod, and I felt perfectly, deeply happy. I will never forget that feeling, ever... it was so bright and serene, like summer in cinematic California or something.

Heheh. Sunny days and palm trees, huh?

And wide sparkling cyan water, yes. No idea what the rest of the day was like, either, after those moments. And then the only other visual memory is…

The lights?

In the corner?

Yeah.

No.

No?

No, the only memory I have of them is from the time Chaos was channeled was the moment I saw his eyes, and then… and then the moment when we finally kissed, when it hit me that this is really happening and the moment is stored as a bloom of deep fiery joy in the heart. It's… that's it. No room memory at all, just the color of the light, all dimly violet and blue and red.

…

That’s it, really.

Huh. …I'm glad you remember that.

So am I. I remember a ton of snapshots from outside the house, but nothing I can piece together and walk through. I can get a vague visual awareness, like I'm sure I could find my way around well enough if I went back there, but I can't tell you what it would look like ahead of time.

I see. Now can we please change the topic because you forgot to mention we had a 20 minute break back there.

Yeah, right when you asked me about the room. You said, "I'm not saying anything until you get back in there," and then stuff happened.

Please, talk about the stuff, that's too bloody important to leave out.

Okay. First I talked to Simeon.

What.

Yeah, actually that's super important too, I needed to tell you. The body started to get context memory again, and the next thing I know we were both asking each other if we were okay? But I SAW him. He's in raw whitespace, where Javier was re-forming last summer.

Whitespace? But he has a form?

Yeah. Oh!! It's the-- the place where the ground fell through, in Central City.

Really?

The city tiers. It's where Jeremiah was forced into existence, too. That floating area. Down in the ground.

Wonder if that's part of why they're connected.

Could be, I think it applies to the kids too. And Simeon, which is why I'm not surprised.

Shoot, yeah, all the kids stay with Jerry too. Does Simeon?

No, he doesn't quite leave the "whitespace" part of it. There's all raw stuff floating in the lower spaces, really, filling up the "ground" where there's nothing but solid space. Anyway we were in whitespace, talking. I asked him if he was Sylvain and reincarnated, he said no, that was his brother but he was "from another time" so there's no memory of him.

Makes sense. Kind of like you.

11/11 at the bottom of the page again, just wanted to point that out.

Heck yes, it's been a while.

Page 11! Geez! Oh that reminds me. Simeon looked at me at one point and said, "you're not Jay."

What?

No listen, I wasn't. I "slipped out" and that overly exuberant social "cover" was out, kind of like a mask or splinter program? Like Simile is for Melodia, I think.

Makes sense. But he saw it?

Yeah. So then I pulled myself in as strongly as I could, just surrendered to my own resonance however it manifested-- he helped, he could also tell when I felt 'off'--

That is so freaking weird though, how he could see it.

Probably because we were in raw whitespace, effectively. It'd be more visible there.

Ah. But yeah, what'd you do, kid?

I apparently am not humanoid, like I suspected. I'm halfway between crystalline and luminous, halfway between a glass-edge fragile explosion and a flowy miasma of light. I don't know about eyes, or limbs, but I do NOT have a mouth and when I "talk" it is purely telepathic and comes from somewhere behind me, like a foot behind my chest and my head both. It's weird. But THAT feels "right," totally so, at least as far as presentation goes.

Holy swords. So how about now, are you here?

Not entirely, because in order to be in that form, I cannot talk for extended periods. It's a very "being" state, not "doing," hence the exuberant overlay or whatever.

Ah. That makes sense. You were talking about that split the other day, I think. You always are.

Because it's a concern, "how do I be both," well now I know I already am, I just have to practice shifting and balancing and things. We'll see. But it's awesome.

No kidding, you'll have to let me see you like that tonight or whenever.

After we're done typing!

Yeah, get to the chocolate already.

Wait, I spoke more to Simeon. At one point he said "I took the pain away" and I asked him, if he really was someone who could heal us from hacks? And I think he is? Like he specifically implied that his function was to "smooth over" or "comfort" in the wake of those things… more of a feeling, like blanketing someone who is cold, or smoothing down rough edges, that sort of vibe.

I'm still laughing at "specifically implied."

I don't know how else to say it, haha! Feelings are clearer than words. But yes, we seem to be right, Simeon exists as a "pain manager."

You know who else is a "pain manager," effectively? Eros. Get to it.

Ah. Yeah, so after that we somehow ended up in the kitchen with Eros stuffing his face full of chocolate cheesecake-- oh!!

What, you remember something?

Yes. However we ended up in there, the moment we saw it, Jessica's daemon jumped up to the very front of the vision, as the resonance of it was very close to him.

What? How?

Chocolate, that rich sort, but also the cherries. It was cherry cordial cheesecake, and for some reason that clear drippy red along with the thick, dry chocolate cake was perfect for his vibe.

The "cheesecake" part was Eros, holy smokes.

We'll get to that, in a minute.

Yeah it was just hilarious. Keep talking though, I'm interested.

So the first thing this daemon does is look at me fit to burn a house down, and demand that I am not to eat it. I said I wouldn't, but then there was like 20 seconds of marked blurry hesitation, and then Eros was out, trying to do just that, outside of that daemon's view.

Wait, so he can only see you?

I think so. Jessica is the "body core," or at least, the consciousness tied to the body persona that the people we live with give it. So I'm tied to her as one of the main people, if that makes sense.

It does. So he can only see you because you're on his level, really.

Yeah. I mean I would assume so. It's just weird because we're in his floating space when we talk, which means he's letting me in temporarily to talk to me, and I can get in there to talk to him but he's not very happy when I abuse that right. Like he gets mad. It's a very "brown" anger, though. Compact and solid and heavy, but with that red burn of his eyes. Very different than plain red anger. The red is just a buzz edge.

Kid you say the weirdest flipping things but I think I get what you mean. Stern anger with an edge that could explode any second?

Not so much "explode" as "burn." It's red, not yellow.

Ah. Got it.

So that was that. Then Eros decided "oh my gosh cheesecake" and went to town.

What he said was seriously interesting, though.

Yeah, mind data says he only ate it because it was warm.

Really?

Yeah. Otherwise he wouldn't have touched it. But the warmth, on top of the rich sweetness-- NOT dense, that would have been a totally different vibe too-- was too perfect, and he latched right onto it.

He said it was, and pardon my language, "what sensuality tasted like." Specifically that combination of things, and especially the cheesecake, as I said.

I think it was the texture? Like it's hard to put into words, but it's… off-white, thick, but like a cloud. Heavy but full of air, like a pierzyna, and being wrapped up in it and warm. The warmth is extremely important, he's right.

Where does the chocolate come in then, Julie?

That's important too, I can feel the data. It's not just any chocolate, it was that dry cake chocolate, dense but crumbly. Not like a box cake or a brownie. This was packed but it crumbled like ground in your hands. For some reason that applied to chocolate was important, I guess it balanced out the influence somehow? Anyway that's not important. The emphasis was on the cheesecake. The cherries were visual for sensuality, that glossy glassy red that I adore, that Eros reflects in his own right.

So the chocolate is just whatever? Because Julie is tied to it, is why I'm asking.

That's why I think the dryness was important, the bittersweet aspect of it. Chocolate, when sweet or too dense or too milky, becomes a totally different thing. It becomes threatening, almost.

Ah. So this was a… property shift?

I think?

Got it.

But I find it interesting that Eros said "this is what sensuality tastes like." The not-exactly-sweet but incredibly rich warmth of it. And it does, it's hard to put into words.

Hey, you would know, not me.

Actually you could know, if you wanted to, and THAT is what's important here.

Sexuality and sensuality are two totally different things.

And Eros has very little to do with the former, if at all.

Yeah, no kidding, that shocked me. Someone tried to screw around with the body memory when we left the kitchen and he got so freakin' angry--

It was a trauma trigger, when we walked into the bathroom to brush our teeth, immediately the body started getting spasms and pain reactions, from context memory. And Eros did get shockingly angry, he jumped right up and demanded to know "who was doing that," that "no one had any right TO do that." Which secretly lit this huge flame of hopeful gratitude in my heart, really. He got so corrupted before he died, hearing that from him now just wiped all the doubt away that I had about that. He splintered into his own person and lost the corruption he had held prior. Which is such a relief.

No kidding, I was worried sick about him too, and about what he could do if he wasn't healed from all that.

Mm-hmm. So… I remember he actually fed Julie a bit of the cheesecake and she got the cutest smile, it was great.

Yeah, that was pretty adorable.

Like Knife!

And Xenophon, we kept joking about that, and you forgot to mention that people keep name-blurring with those two. Infi and Xenophon.

Yeah, that's weird, it's been happening for months on and off.

Eros said he meant to say Xennie but then said Infi, like an afterthought of hir relevance or something.

Yeah. Those two have a deep connection somewhere and I think that's proof of it, subconsciously. I don't know what it is, other than parentage, but that could be significant enough.

Yeah. That's just guesswork now, though.

Pretty much.

So. I know we had something else to say about the Eros thing.

Yeah, it was more relief on my part, as well as heartbreaking realization, of just how far the confusion went? Or could go? You had something to say about that.

I did, I was wondering why the hell pain was tied to sexuality and Eros began explaining that to me, before he realized that he didn't have that data and that's why we called Julie in.

Oh yeah! That was interesting too, the fact that Eros actually doesn't have any accessible memory for sexuality. I thought he did.

That's how far the role corruption went, kid. And then Julie said that sexual pain and non-sexual pain are apparently two totally different things as well, which infuriated me because who the hell is trespassing on my turf with this topic, and then the fear thing came up. "Would this all stop if you were terrified of it."

Jabberwock.

If pain was put back into these sexual hacks, pain you could be afraid of, would it stop? Would you stop bloody confusing it with me because you are too freaking dissociated to tell what is happening and you're seeking relief? And we figured, heck yes, if we saw that monstrosity associated with this we would run the second it was implied.

Jabberwock is terrifying. Ze really is. But ze's a Retributor, I think, at least the motivation is the same.

Good. She should be, the last thing we need is more corrupt reinforcement of the negative.

Meaning?

Meaning the next person to promote abusive behavior up here is getting my axe slammed into their face.

Good.

Yeah, no joke. I'm tired of this.

Mostly splinters and fragments and socials are promoting abuse now, though. No one in the System.

Yeah, and thank God. Wait-- why the heck would socials­ be-- oh. Societal garbage, right?

Yeah. Subconscious programming. Subliminal obligation. Dirty automated scary stuff that ends up in the cellars solely because there's no filter on what's shoved into your awareness on the outside.

That's why Infi's around though, right? At least halfway.

What, to protect me from that?

To remind you of what's true, not that. Infinitii is tied to the subconscious trouble more than anyone else up here, save for maybe the other daemons from what you've told me. But Infi holds our scary stuff from the outside. The whole bloody System, since ze's the Core-splinter of you. Ze has to deal with all the terrifying nonsense that gets to you in the dark, and ze's stuck twofold because ze's part of it, part of the dark, part of the Shadow that we need to turn into gold, as you say.

Infi is already gold.

That's the point.

…I suppose it is. Oh geez, I suppose it is.

Heh, got you pretty deep on that, huh?

Yes. I… you did. Also. Wreckage is more gold than ever now. Her teeth and claws shine with it.

Really?

Yeah, like a vague iridescent gold sheen. They're almost ivory-white otherwise, like bone. And her body was muted before, like a dirty gold, and now it shines. She's become so valiant lately, like you really, I admire her growth so much. And her eyes don't shadow red anymore! They're straight-up gold too.

Her eyes were going red?

Yeah, at first they'd turn red every once in a while, which is a sign of instability for anyone, the color differences. But now they're gold all the time, no flickers.

Geez, that's good news. Anyone else you got an update on, while we're here on the topic?

Uh… hm. Not really? Oh! I kissed Josephina yesterday. His doing.

Sheesh, you didn't write that down yet? That was moving, really.

Yeah. I got out of therapy and I was a mess, I think Genesis hugged me, I had been dealing with mother issues and feelings of unworthiness and stuff… everything we discussed at the beginning of this session and more. But then Genesis was there for me, and you were, I remember you hugged me and I swear I felt it, that was twice that day I think. The first time I almost collapsed into sobs on the spot because it meant everything in that moment, it was everything real and true and forgiving and I needed it more than life itself at the time.

…

So people were comforting me, for carrying that for everyone else. I know Knife was there, so was Lynne, Nat and Leon both, Julie, we called in Javier as he didn't know where we were… Waldorf hugged me so sincerely, there's a real friendship between us now, and I expected Josephina to follow her after last time but he got me back for that, still took me by surprise. I remember hearing those little jingly bell earrings he wears too. But it was so sincere, it meant so much to me.

"After last time?" Did you write that down?

What?

You kissed Waldorf, about three weeks ago. That's all I know.

Me too, it's not even my memory.

What?

It's weird. It was one of those dead-float mornings, the pale white ones.

Oh. Shoot. Were you okay?

Ultimately, thanks only to Nat and Leon, who somehow negated all the negative influence that was trying to choke me at the time. I'll never forget that feeling, I hope not. There was such sincere peace between them both, it embraced me like a flower or like moonlit wings, like greenery and indigo light. I felt totally absolved. And that's the only memory I have of that entire morning, personally.

Who the heck kissed Waldorf then? Who the heck keeps fronting in your stead, when stuff like this happens? It's not Eros, we confirmed that just now, so…

Yeah, I thought it was him, but again that was due to role confusion.

Who the heck really holds that confusing stuff, then.

I don't know.

We need to find out.

Garrison, write that down?

Heheh.

Kalisha did, there's a huge heaviness to having that set down as a "to-do" item though.

Meaning?

Meaning now it's written down. It's a tangible thing. And there is a heavy vibe to it.

From the job, or what it implies?

…From what we'll have to look through to do it, I think. It's a stony brown color, a light dustiness, but not in a comforting way. Like desert dirt. Dry and silent weight.

Huh. Guess we'll be taking Chaos along, then.

Hhhhf.

Hehe, have you mentioned how he's been trying to get your attention like crazy these past few days?

Since I tuned back in? No. I should.

Synchronicity has been up the wall, dude.

I know! Honestly it's been breaking my heart and glowing it both, it's insane. Wherever I look, or listen, there he is. There's oceans everywhere. Even when I don't look, or want to look, or feel worthy of looking. The messages keep coming. Go to him. Go back to him. "Do you realize how much love is there for you?" And not even as something apart, the feeling of this which makes it so significant and heartbreakingly true is that it's not at a distance, when these words hit me they resonate in my heart, deep within my ribs like the bottom of the sea, echoing like a bell in the depths. They catch and ring and I know there is a part of me there that matches him, that half of a taijitu, that infinite loop, I can't ever deny that even when I find it hard to believe… it's true. It still responds. And I can never ignore these calls, these synchronicities, because my soul has already wholeheartedly answered "yes" before my brain can hesitate in doubt. But it'll never say "no." That's always moved me to tears, the fact that even when I'm terrified, my poor mind still can't say no to that light because it knows, deep down it knows too that there's only joy on the other side. There's only light when you open the door and walk through it, only open arms and that reminds me, "Heaven" was on the radio today too.

Wait, what?

"Heaven." By Bryan Adams. Ryman's song, from 2002. It was playing over the radio when Genesis and I stopped at Wegmans, I barely heard it but I knew what it was. And I started laughing, and smiling, and suddenly it was impossible for me to ignore my health anymore. You know how tough it is to stay focused and centered in public, social programming likes to kick in and unhealthy obligations take over. But that song was playing, and I was pulled 100% into fronting, and… I felt worthy of it, for a moment. Like I was shining white and confetti-colored, as I should be, and it was impossible for me to hurt myself along with anyone else. So I didn't.

…Kid, that's great. That's great to hear that.

I know, it was so significant. And of course Genesis gets his due, we kept jokingly calling each other "babe" and then one time he gave me this look and I had to laugh, "are you flirting with me," he said "maybe." Oh and I jokingly told him later that if he really wanted to snog me, as you'd say, he'd have to wait until we got home. He's going to ask me about it tomorrow if I forget, so make sure he's in our room when we're done with this. I know he's been sticking around lately but the moment I lie down CZ gets all the focus and I'm sorry, I'm rambling on again. I guess I just want to say that I love them both but I do owe Genesis a non-social, more "introverted" show of love than I usually do?

And you should take Chaos with you when you travel more often too, "babe," he misses you too during the day.

That's true, haha. It's just weird, or at least unusual, because he is so much quieter than Genesis vibe-wise, except when Perfect shows up and then it's his old romancer vibe all the time.

Ah. Really?

Yeah, he's all teeth and grins and personal interaction, I don't know how good he'd be at social guiding, which is what Genesis does actually. Gen makes sure I can function in public places without massive fronter switching, or getting lost due to memory gaps, or the like. CZ and I don’t have much experience with doing that, yet at least.

Huh. Maybe you should, I mean you two are married, as far as relevance goes.

Yeah.

Sorry. Now I'm the one apologizing. I joke too much about this stuff, and I'm truly sorry.

I know.

…Too much bleedover. I'm scared to death, kid, I really am, what with this relationship pain thing, and my bloody apathy thanks to that fear. Not understanding what to do and not liking that one bit. I'm sorry, kid, I keep throwing you under the railroad tracks here and not realizing what the heck I'm doing in the process.

Explain?

Heh, you know what I mean, Jay. I keep… running. Terrible things happen to you and instead of jumping into action like I used to I freak the heck out, because "what if they hack me" and--

Wait, Laurie, they can't touch you, you know that--

No we don't.

Yes we DO. I swear I will NEVER let them hurt you.

They can pretend to be me. You know that.

…I do. I'm sorry. I just…

You know it's not me, but the residue is hell. The fear lingers. You look at me and you don't bloody know.

I do know, Laurie--

You don't know, kid, not when fear is ruling the roost. Not when you are so bloody terrified of what happened the last time someone pretending to be me showed up, that your visceral subconscious reaction is to freeze up or run. You're not afraid of me, kid, you're afraid of them, but sometimes you can't tell the difference and that is what I'm so afraid of.

…So you stay away from me?

Yeah. God forgive me, kid, I am so sorry.

…

I really am. I don't want to see you attacked by these demons, but God help me, I don't want to be responsible for more pain on top of that hell. I don't know what the heck to do.

Be there. Please. Be there for me. If you're scared, get Infi, bring hir with you.

Infi gets lost just as much as I do, and in totally different ways, kid, that's the bloody danger here!!

…

Infi gets lost worse than I ever could. Ze knows exactly what I'm terrified of in this. …And yet you're not afraid of hir, are you?

No. But that's what's lethal.

…Shoot.

I'm not afraid of you either, Laurie, I'm afraid of losing you. You and I have the same fear in this.

…So what do we do?

…Get a third person in this regardless? Sugar's your bodyguard now, isn't she?

Yeah, no kidding, I needed one.

They can't touch her, can they?

I doubt it. She doesn't have love-ties to you. She's a Retributor, and she's Pink, which means she has backup from other Protectors if someone tries to violate her function. Maybe Eros could help in this regard, who knows. I know Julie is iffy about it because she doesn't want to be reminded of the past, but… geez. I don't know.

We'll find out. We don't need to solve this overnight. We just have to stay strong, and stay together, even if that sounds like a platitude. Hope is important, as is faith in each other.

It is.

And love.

Which they're trying to mangle beyond recognition.

They won't. They can't. They can try to blur our perspective all they want, but they can't change the core of this, the truth. I think that's why I'm not afraid of Infi. Or you. Or Chaos, for that matter.

Or Genesis. I've heard the stories, kid.

Of?

He slips, too. You avoided him for a freaking long time because of that. And yet every time he knocks on your door, you let him in. Every time he ghosts, you say hello, and let him follow you. Unconditional forgiveness, that's what you've got, kid. I only ask that you do the same for me if I ever screw up.

Laurie. Love, that's guaranteed. I could never withhold forgiveness from you, ever, no matter what you did.

Are you sure?

…Laurie, I think the things we're both terrified of you doing, you're not even capable of. It literally hurts to think of, like massive dissonance.

Does it now.

Yeah. Your very existence clashes with those fears. They can't occupy the same space.

But it's the fear I'm afraid of, kid, ironically. It's them tying my face or my likeness-- which they're doing already-- to abuse, to what seriously hurts or scares you. I do not want that happening. I will stop this travesty if it bloody kills me.

You know I realize it's not you, right?

But it scares you, doesn't it, that they won't quit?

It unnerves me. It makes me scared for you, or at least, my knowledge of you in my mind.

See, that's the thing.

But I know you better than they ever will. No amount of forcing or lies on their part will ever change my mind.

You swear?

Absolutely. Cross my heart.

Don't you dare die.

Well. Not like that, anyway.

Don't. Too many times I've almost lost you, and once I did. Don't. I swear, kid, even if I fail you in the worst way, don't you DARE take a knife to your own throat, or heart, or wrists. Don't you bloody dare. There's more to life than me, I want you to go on living, heal from whatever the heck I did, you've got better docs than me and you know it.

I... Laurie. Please. It's not going to happen.

But the sentiment is true. All right?

…All right. …I really love you, Laurie. I do.

I know, kid, I love you too, and believe me when I say that.

I do. I never doubted you.

Good. Then that's step one, again, as always.

Yeah. But it's a spiral step, I think. We have made progress. It's just that this is the truth beneath all other truths, holding them up, lifting us higher. It's the baseline.

Base Zero. Pun intended.

Yeah, no kidding. …But that's the point, yeah. Love is there. Unfailing, undying.

…

Not much you can say to that, huh?

Nah, just stepping back and taking it in is all.

Words really do fail. It sounds paltry, to keep saying the same words…

What the heck else are you going to say, kid? It is how it is. Amen and all that.

Haha, yeah.

So. Speaking of love. You going up to meet the monsters yet or what?

Uh, after I color our text and post this, sure.

Remember you've gotta draw pixels for everyone else soon.

Oh yes, that is true. I'd love to. I do want to draw people, it's just the shock of not being able to photorealistically render everyone on the first shot is overwhelming sometimes…

Kid, you are too much of a perfectionist, I swear. Pun intended.

Really.

Yeah. Stop pursuing that dead end, you know as well as I do what the lesson is there.

…Yeah. We've talked about it.

So. Trial and error, I guess. Make mistakes. Grow from them. Learn. You can do it, kid, I have faith in you.

I've heard all that before and yet every time you say it it means the world.

That's the point, boy. But really, we done talking for tonight? It's 1:30 in the bloody morning and you still have Cold Dust Girl on loop.

Oh man, talk about relevant.

How the heck did that song even become relevant?

The chords. This is the Gemini Club remix, remember. I gravitate to harmonies in songs, mostly, half the time I don't even notice lyrics unless they catch me hard.

Like "Heaven" did today, huh?

Yes. "Now our dreams are coming true, through the good times and the bad…"

Next line is "I'll be standing there by you," and I gotta apologize to Ryman but I am stealing that tonight, sorry. You been hanging out with him recently or what?

No, the dead period made it tough to reach anyone, let alone the Outspacers of all people. But he showed up in my inner vision on the 19th, when Markus was singing…

Markus? Really?

Yeah, he sings.

Hey, that's pretty cool. Didn't know the kid had it in him.

Hey, he sings "Empty Streets" and that was the first song I ever heard him do, years ago.

Yeah, but not much else, right? Ryman's at least associated with communication and all that, blue stuff.

Plus Ryman was singing from the moment I met him, practically. But yeah, Markus was singing… I forget what song, I'll have to look and see if I wrote it down. But he had his rose wings activated, I forgot how beautiful they were… I've never seen those two boys so clearly before, not that I can remember. It was amazing. And it came out of nowhere, while meditating, after weeks of not having heard from them at all. And then Ryman's song played over the radio today. Synchronicity!

Heheh, that's what makes life worth living, kid, are the little things.

Hey, I just want to thank you for saying my name earlier. It means a lot to hear you say it, I know you call me "kid" all the time, so--

Geez, Jay, if I knew that was bothering you I wouldn't do it--

No, it's not a bother, I like it. But names are important. So hearing mine said by you means a lot.

…Jay, you know what I said about you always saying inexplicably romantic things. That was one of them.

Is "romantic" the right word?

Closest bleeding thing to it for me, at least. Whatever the heck it is. Things that make you pause and realize that "man, I really freakin' care about this person."

Ah, okay. I know what that is.

What what is?

That feeling. It's nice.

Yeah, no kidding. When do you get it?

Always, geez.

No, I mean examples.

Uh… hm. Let me think of one from recently… well, actually, the other week when Chaos told me "home is where the heart is" when referring to me. He was half asleep. It was the sweetest, most fragile thing, it had such an impact on me then. Still does.

Yeah, takes your heart a bit to recover, doesn't it?

Exactly! There's no term for it in the English language that I know of and there should be. Ironically "indescribable" is the closest match, so.

Heheh. But yeah, kid, that's it.

From me?

From you, yeah, I get that from you, why?

Just… same feeling in return is all.

Good. That's how it should work, I think.

So.

Hm?

Should I go up and toss this feeling at the monsters or what?

Haha, absolutely man, your lips are going to be bleeding five seconds in and you know it.

Geez Laurie, Genesis doesn't bite that much, you know that.

No I don't actually, and frankly it would be weird as heck if he bit me, so.

I think he shares the sentiment.

Heheh.

Oh. Uh, there was something I had to say.

What?

Have I mentioned that Infi has crystal teeth?

Have you?

I'm not sure. They're all diamonds, or something. All pointy and perfect. Chaos has teeth that are subtly green-clear like glass, but they're made of water too, or at least liquid energy, like the rest of him. Genesis has normal-colored bone teeth but they are crazy big, his mouth is just weird. The inside is dark blue and his tongue is amber.

How the heck does that work?

Dream demons, man, nobody knows. Chaos has a blue tongue when he needs one and Infi's is black. Shiny black, kind of silvery in the light, not pitch black like the inside of hir mouth, so.

Kiddo you know way too much about these people's mouths.

I have an aesthetic addiction. A fascination. I like teeth.

And?

And drippy things. There, I said it. But mouths are weird, I don't like mouths, at least not on faces? Is that weird?

Yes.

Which is why Infi is cool, because ze has mouths on hir wings, and CZ doesn't often have a mouth at all, so. But I wonder why that is, mouths on faces with eyes make me uneasy at times. It's too much focused manic energy.

What about for me, and Genesis? We got that too?

Genesis doesn’t faze me much because his energy vibe is charged, so I expect that. And you don't get romantic like Infi or quiet-intimate like CZ.  It's all about vibes. If someone gets too close, and there's too much mouth, it scares me a little?

Is that an abuse association? Did Julie do that during her bad days?

Maybe?

Shoot, I forgot you don't know.

I think it's less her, and more the family. But yeah, we should pinpoint that too, for sure, so we can release it.

Can I just say thank God we are releasing this trauma baggage because I am so bloody tired of some of it.

Most of it, for me. I'm glad too.

Yeah, no kidding. It feels good to get all this off our backs at long last.

Why'd it take so long?

You're asking me, kid! I've been trying to solve it since I showed up here, eight bloody years ago.

Happy late birthday, by the way. I mean that.

Kid, I don't care if you're two months late, I know you meant it back on the 4th. Like I said, you're alive, that's what matters.

Thank you.

…Kid.

What?

I know you always want to say "I love you" after things like that, and I just wanna thank you for being comfortable saying that around me, like that.

…That is important, yeah.

Sure. So I love you too. Now get your ass to bed.

Haha, again!

Yeah, the other night was funny. Hey, your boss still talking to you at night or what?

On and off. He got tangled up with the faceless voices so it was iffy for a while. I haven't seen him directly in a while, though, no.

Go say hi to him before you snog the monsters, tell him I said hi.

I will. I miss him so much, I realy do.

Then maybe we should close this bloody huge thing up, it's 25 pages already.

Geez. Feels good!

Yeah, you're telling me! I miss talking to you like this, kid. Jay.

Haha. I appreciate that, actually.

Good, 'cause I'm trying. Oh, also. Say goodnight to Xennie more often, okay? I know it's ridiculously late now, but she usually goes to bed around 11 o'clock, so pop upstairs for a second and tuck her in for heaven's sake, at least.

I will. Remind me.

I will, if I can reach you. But you need to spend more time with that kid, she loves you.

I adore her. I'm just a mess so often, I know it scares her sometimes.

Scares me too, doesn't mean I love you any less. Same with her. If anything it makes her want to help you more by being with you.

No child should feel so obligated to help their parents get better, enough to care for them. It's terribly unfair.

Kid. She's got a whole freakin' support system up here. Literally. You're not her only caretaker.

But I'm her father, whether I understand it or not.

…True.

So I want to be better, for her.

You think she doesn't know that?

…

She does, kid, believe me she does. She doesn't want to help you because she pities you, or because she feels obligated to. Not at all. She wants to help you because she loves you like you love her and she wants to see you feel better for your sake as well as hers. It's unconditional and you know it. Don't make me cite examples.

No, I can name several. I just… bottom line is, Laurie, sometimes I just don't feel worthy enough to be her father.

Nonsense. You're the worthiest man in the world because you are her father. Okay? Don't crush yourself into the dirt. You're fine. Remember what we said about perfection.

…Are you sure?

Absolutely sure, Jay. And let me add this. The moment you stop freaking out and worrying, is the moment you realize you are already the father you want to be for her, and the father she needs. As soon as you stop putting yourself down and selling yourself short, you can stand as high as you wanted to all along. You're standing in your own light, kid, that's all it is, simply because you can't believe that you're the one shining that brightly. Okay? I can see it, she can see it, Infi and Chaos and Genesis can see it, we all can. Don't be so bloody afraid of your own light. If anyone told you that being too bright was bad, or blasphemous, they can jump right off the roof of Central. That kind of talk is nonsense, as I will always say. You're a spotlight, kid, and you've highlighted everything that's bright in me even when I was blind to it. So let me do the same for you.

You always do.

Yeah, I guess so. …No, that means a lot to hear, actually. Thank you.

Always.

…Well.

Well?

Heh. Same sentiment back at you, right?

Oh. Yeah, I… thank you.

Always. Now we closing this up?

Sure, let's do that before I fall asleep standing up.

Therapy tomorrow, what we talking about?

Oh, uh… geez, I don't know, whatever comes up. This maybe, something else maybe. We'll see.

Sounds good to me.

Oh and I told Simeon he can front if he wants to, since that kid has a much bigger role than we previously realized, if today is any indication.

No kidding. But really, Jay, get some sleep. People are waiting for you.

True. All right, good night Laurie. I love you a lot.

Same to you, kid. See you around.

Yes, in a few minutes.

Hey, the chair will never leave.

As long as that means you won't either, that's great.

Heheh.

Okay. We need to do this more often. Thanks for being brave enough to start this one, too.

…Yeah, that was tough.

Your bravery in all things is a shining example to me.

Are you falling asleep?

Yes. Poetry.

Go write some.

If I can, I will. And then I will sleep.

Well, before that I heard you're going to be performing a different kind of poetry, so…

No jokes. Not about that.

Sorry.

It's okay. We just need to be more reverent, Infi said. It helps.

That it does.

Okay. I cannot talk anymore, I need to show you my wing-ness and the arms and the back mouth. Teeth. Talking. It comes from my head, I have no face.

Kid, you are practically high, this is hilarious.

is it. good. oh and my hair is shiny, like a crystal, it's kind of funny. I'm all iridescent spikes like a christmas ribbon. did I tell you autumn feels like the end of the year, but like new years? like for me, life ends at the beginning. life begins right before the ending. like in steps 1 to 4, step 3 is the beginning. does that make sense?

Kind of?

things that look like death, people think, "it's autumn, the year is drawing to a close, the leaves are dying, soon it will be the dead of winter and then it's the end. of the year. then comes spring, the beginning again!" but for me… autumn is both the closing of the book, and the opening of another? it is simultaneously new year's. maybe because of my birthday. but autumn is the first thing I remember and also it was an ending. that makes more sense.

That's interesting, and it does.

but… it's lovely. I'm glad to be alive. and I'm tired.

Then go to bed, kid.

okay. wait.

Wait?

we are so bad at closing these

Haha, you do remember that. Yeah, we really suck at conclusions. Endings are bittersweet and all that.

bittersweet is nice though

…I suppose it is. Kind of like those 'moments,' huh?

the nice ones yeah. no words for those

Maybe that's why we're bad at conclusions, huh?

maybe. I love you laurie good night

I love you too, Jay. See you later. 

 

 

 
 

 

SESSION PARTICIPANTS
LAURIE UBERICH JEWEL LIGHTRAYE



...Laurie?

The heck do you want.

I just want to talk.

Yeah, well, we were supposed to talk earlier today, and maybe if we did this disaster wouldn't have happened. Really, we were supposed to talk several bloody times over the past few months and has any of that come through? No. You keep screwing everything up.

I know.

This moral cowardice needs to stop. You have a daughter to protect now, and you know it.

...

Hurts, doesn't it?

...More than I can take.

Then stop bloody taking it, for her sake. We both know that's your problem.

I'm confusing realities, Laurie. I'm seeing my own ideas and feelings in everything, where they don't even exist or apply by any stretch of the imagination.

You're being obtrusive as always, huh?

...I suppose so.

Too much hope.

I have far too much hope, Laurie...

...Confound it. How many bloody times are we going to have this conversation?

I really hope this is the... the last time. There's that hope again... I really need to stop thinking about it.

That's what I wanted to discuss. Does the 'you attract what you emit' thing play into this or what?

Obviously. For some reason I can't stop thinking about how I've suffered from this in the past. I see my scars and the pain hits me again. I see a mirror and it's like a bullet to the brain. And all those reminders, that unwanted focus, keep bringing this situation back to the forefront. I don't know what to do about it, other than letting go, and for some horribly ironic reason that is a lot harder than it should be. It's like trying to drop a suitcase but realizing that your bones have somehow knotted from the strain and you can't loosen them anymore, even though the weight is more than you can handle anymore.

Sounds like it. So what do you do?

I need to... cut myself off from triggers again, I guess. That's just... a lot harder than it sounds, too.

This the static problem?

...Yeah.

Have you brought this up to them?

NO. No, I refuse to talk about that to anyone and ironically, again, that is currently the one traumatic memory my mind refuses to acknowledge, because it is so disturbing.

I think it's still disturbing you though. More than ever. Otherwise this ship would not be going down.

I think it is, too. In the back of my mind. The details have been scratched out, but they still left a huge and ugly mark, and I think that's what my mind is obsessing over, if only in a 'car crash' way. It's horrific and it's terrifying, but you can't look away.

Why not?

...I think that's where my pain addiction comes back in, at least partly. I'm a lot more morbid than I should be because of what I've gone through with this. I keep remembering the knives and the blood and the psych ward and although I never want to go through that again, I'm stuck between that and this.

Or you can just blast a hole through the bloody wall and leave the freakin' building.

I should. But how would I do that?

You're the Seer, you tell me.

I'm a Spark, now, with how I keep shifting. Like... what starts a fire, or a star, or a song. A Cause.

Of Hope, still?

Yeah.

Huh. Sounds like you need to find the right hope, then.

I don't know what to do though. Laurie, I always say that "you get a second chance every second," but it's working like a memory wipe and it's doing that to all the forgiveness and healing too. I keep finding myself facing this situation, and thinking, "maybe this time I'll find something good in it. Maybe this time it won't hurt, it won't be so frightening." I hope, I always hope, that "this time will be different." And it never is.

That's one of your biggest curses and biggest blessings right there.

Maybe the biggest. Did I tell you I've already legitimately forgotten that Julie was responsible for all my old hacks?

You're kidding me.

No, I'm not. I honestly forgot that she ever hurt me at all.

...Jewel, I'm not condemning your depth of forgiveness or anything, but God help you, you need to at LEAST have some sort of defense up.

And I don't.

No, you bloody well don't. Second chances every second, and you forget why the heck you had walls up in the first place. Then you tear them down and hey, now I remember! Except you've just had your entire arm torn off or your face smashed in or your mind scarred for a literal hell of a long time. Again.

And it keeps happening.

Honestly it's like you're falling down a spiral staircase. Don't you always dream about stairs? Do you ever fall down the bloody things?

No, actually...

Well guess what? That's because you're doing enough falling in the waking. You run up to the top and forget that there's a missing step or something like that and geez, this all goes back to you forgetting, doesn't it?

Forgiving and forgetting.

You have that principle so twisted it's a tragedy.

...

Let's go back a bit, sheesh. My mind is reeling.

Why?

Because we have had this same bloody conversation, over and over, far too many bloody times already! I don't care how much synchronicity you have with Celebi, this is taking it way too far.

Laurie, this is happening because we still haven't gotten to the bottom of this yet.

And why the heck not? We know what's causing this.

Well... maybe. I don't know. It just seems that new reasons keep coming up all the time.

Like what?

Like the forgiving and forgetting, first of all. Then there's the hope that never dies even when it's only doing me harm. That ties into me seeing ideals and things where there are none. Like... like how I always use terms and phrases that don't mean what they would to a typical person. You know how I always redefine words and assume everyone else uses the same meaning, because I see something totally different in it? And songs, that's probably the best example! I don't know if that's pure projection or what, which is bad, but like if someone is listening to... to a song that I've associated with you, or Chaos, or something like that, I automatically assume that they're getting the SAME feelings from it that I do, even if there's no way that would be possible! And so I keep throwing myself into troublesome situations because I don't see the trouble. I've taken something that the world has strictly and irreversibly defined as one thing, and my hope and freaking naivete makes me see something entirely different...

And then you suffer for it. I know.

But... I don't know, I just... why do I keep doing this? Why don't I ever learn?

Kid, if I knew, I'd have told you already.

...I don't want to hurt anyone else anymore. And I think that's a big part of this too.

What do you mean?

I... Chaos... Chaos didn't suffer like I did. I gave him my hope, everything. I gave him everything, that I saw and felt and hoped for. So I was left with nothing but the original, awful thing, and it hurt like you wouldn't believe, and it scared me to death because there was such a huge break between us and I didn't realize that I had caused it. I kept getting it confused. I kept thinking that we were experiencing the exact same thing when we WEREN'T. Ever!

Is this what happened on Thursday?

I don't remember what day it was. But yeah, last week, twice. Totally sacrificed myself for his sake and then got freaking scared out of my mind when I thought... it's ironic. It really is. There was a day or two when, because I failed to realize the uncrossable break between our experiences, I thought that my hope was actually legitimate, that maybe there was something redeemable about what I had suffered through, and that was one of the most horrifying things I've ever felt.

Why?

...I think maybe at heart, I understood that there was no hope for it. No matter how many times I put myself through hell it wouldn't change. It would stay painful and damaging and it would never stop hurting me and the people I loved, no matter what I did. But I couldn't accept that, somehow. I kept suffering because I couldn't accept that. And then last week happened, and for an instant it felt like maybe there WAS hope, and the thought of suffering through that again and again to find it was unbearable.

Then maybe you should've realized that earlier. I'm getting pretty confused, though. You're saying you were deliberately denying the fact that you felt there was no hope in the situation?

Yes. At heart I felt there wasn't, but that was unacceptable because I had already been through hell at it's hands. So if there wasn't hope for it, if it was 'irredeemable,' then all I had suffered in the name of hope was 'sinful' or 'condemnable,' I guess.

There's that bloody perfectionist streak of yours again.

Too much black and white, yeah...

So why did it scare you so much to think that it was redeemable?

Because that wasn't reconcilable with the darkness I had felt from it. If it was redeemable, then I'd have to 'find' that redemption, and even though that was what I was trying to do, I really did not want to. So facing the possibility of hope was more of a slap in the face than anything.

You've been putting yourself through hell for no bloody reason, wake the heck up?

Basically. But I didn't realize that until something put me 'in the right.' I had been too hopeful to pay attention to my own moral screaming and pain up to that point. Then it dared to almost justify it, and immediately that same voice of conscience shouted "no, that isn't right!" There was a huge war inside my mind when that happened and I had no idea what to think.

So you had to be specifically told that what you were doing might be worthwhile, for you to consider whether or not you even wanted to do it?

I guess? It's hard to explain. I suffered because I had hope, but I think I just... that's it, I think I was fighting for the idea of that hope, again! Because MY idea of hope in it was what I so desperately wanted to find! But the 'hope' it offered when I failed to realize that Chaos HAD the idea, was so different from what I so desperately wanted, it shocked me into awareness. That 'hope' wasn't real hope at all. It pointed towards a totally different door that wouldn't have redeemed it at all. But my own hope still lingered, and it made me doubt myself... man I hope this is making sense.

I think I get it. You were looking for your purity again, but when you thought that it might be there after all, that possibility clashed so harshly with what you already knew for sure, that it made you realize with sickening certainty that there really wasn't anything to suffer for, and you had been suffering for naught all this time.

Exactly. That's just how I would have put it.

I figured. Gotta work with what you understand, kid. So what now?

What do you mean, what now?

What the heck are you going to do to fix this? There's no hope, there's nothing to look for in it. There isn't, and don't you dare try to convince yourself otherwise, after all this torture.

...I'll have to stay very conscious then.

Yeah, that's step number one, and the most important one. But I'm also talking about the 'attraction' nonsense. You know the hope is why you haven't let go of that either.

Is it?

Well, duh. You keep looking back, trying to see if there was a glimmer of light in it, but there isn't, and while you're looking for it you fail to notice that the shadows are choking you again.

...Sounds accurate enough.

No kidding, I saw that happen to you two days ago.

You did?

Who's your psycho guardian angel? Me. Of course I saw. You need to be really bloody careful, J. You're being too innocent. You're looking for white in black places and trust me, you aren't going to find any.

I'm slowly realizing that.

Man, Hope really is a fitting epithet for you. You've got too bloody much of it and it's dedicated to the wrong bloody reasons. You've gotta get your act together, boy.

I do.

And yet Chaos is the one holding all your hope.

He's the only reason I have it.

Exactly. He's your heart, when you forget your own.

...Laurie, am I going too far?

Yes.

I mean with what I'm willing to do to find--

Yes, you're going way too bloody far. Self-sacrifice isn't noble when it's hurting everything you stand for and protect.

...

It isn't, and you have to stop this.

I don't know how I forgot that it hurts Xenophon. I don't know how.

Too much hope, kid. That and you were asleep.

Was I?

Well no kidding! You think that would've happened if you were awake? Get a clue, Jewel! How the blood do you keep slipping, anyway?

...I actually don't know? Maybe it's just because I was asleep for so long. It's still a bit tricky to keep my eyes open, no matter how much I want to.

Huh. Makes sense. But keep working on it.

I know. I will. I promise.

You'd better.

Do you think that's enough for this topic?

Why, you sick of it?

I don't know. Maybe. It just hurts to think about and I don't want to think about it.

I'm still concerned about that part, actually. That topic keeps haunting you in spite of what you just told me. Why?

I said it's too much hope.

Is it really?

...Misplaced ideas, then. Definitely. I'm confusing realities. I'm seeking the spiritual in the physical, where it cannot be found, not like that. I'm still viewing concepts and ideas and hopes as physically accessible when that's not even possible. I keep forgetting that the physical realm exists at all. I keep forgetting the danger it holds. I torture my physical form because I'm desperately hoping for the spiritual and that's all I'm focusing on and then when I snap back to attention I realize that I'm bleeding and it is terrifying.

That's still a problem, huh.

The biggest one.

Why the heck haven't we solved it yet?

Once again, too much hope, and I was unable to see that situation clearly, at all. Now that I'm talking to you about it, with the experience I've gained, I think I'll have a better time fighting it...

And I haven't heard that sentence a million times before.

...I try, Laurie. I do. And I do have a better grip on what to do, every time. But it... it's got so many sides to it. So many hidden facets, I guess.

It has one freakin' side and you keep projecting all the other ones onto the bloody thing.

...Is that what I'm doing?

Yeah, it is. We've been trying to get over this single problem for years now, and in my eyes the bloody thing has not changed. To you it's never the same twice.

But... but what about June?

That was you operating on ideas and hopes again and although our conversation about that is STILL relevant, that no longer applies. You needed that one incident to clear your old spectrum. Now you're screwing it up again because you got preoccupied with the 'spiritual' level. Stop it.

So I'm really just... projecting. Hoping. Seeing things where they aren't.

Yeah. Why the heck do you keep asking me? What's keeping you from believing it?

...I don't know.

You don't know.

No. I don't think so... maybe it's just my perfectionist side. I want to make sure everything we're saying is exact, so I don't 'mess up' or anything.

Well guess what? You're bloody 'messing up' just by doing that. Stop being so black and white. Stop trying to get everything 'just so'. You know what you have to do, and if you have to break the bleeding rules to do it then so be it.

I'm tired of being so scared of failure.

It's going to be hard to grow out of, yeah. At least you can tell it's a problem.

It is. It shackles me to this hell, really. 'I have to make sure, beyond a doubt, that this is exactly true!' Geez, and who's authority am I going by? If every person has a different answer, if all these moral quandaries can't be objectively labeled in the first place, why the heck am I so terrified of being 'wrong?' Really, I don't know. It's some sort of baseless, illogical fear that I can't even explain because it's so ridiculous. It's a phantom, something so flimsy that it falls apart the moment I focus on it.

That's called being aware of what you're doing. Keep that up.

Good. I need to.

We still gonna have a talk tomorrow?

I hope so. My morning schedule is already rather booked, but I want to discuss this with at least our core group before... well, before Thursday.

Good idea. This one's really important, huh?

Zero equals infinity, yeah...

I'm getting a rifle recoil reference there.

You should be. That man's music means way too much to us by this point.

Yeah, no kidding. Brought Xenophon about, huh?

Well... indirectly?

Hahaha.

I'm worried about her, though, and I don't even know why. I think maybe it's worry about my own sorry situation, being echoed onto her, because she cares about me so much.

Uh, excuse me? I do too.

...

A heck of a lot of us do, J. Including the reason why you're celebrating this Friday instead of just the weekend.

...I don't know how to feel about what I've done to him, though.

The heck do you mean, 'what you've done to him?'

With my misguided hope.

Dude, you already said that he 'got the ideas.' He doesn't exist on that fallen physical level, thank God. So there's no bloody way you could have done anything to him.

Are you sure?

Are you kidding? How many times have he and I already assured you of that? Geez.

I guess... I'm just terrified of the possibility.

Jewel. For heaven's sake. You said it yourself. You gave your hope to him. You went looking for purity and honesty and spiritual purpose and he already had that, you just got really bloody confused because you were applying something completely different to yourself and THAT'S why we're still dealing with this problem. You couldn't reconcile the differences between your experiences simply because you failed to realize that they weren't the same bloody experience at ALL.

Really?

Do you want me to get him in here? Go ask him yourself. Oh wait, you already did. Why the heck are you still questioning this then?

I told you, because I'm scared.

Of what? Because obviously it's not of him being wrong, as I know you wouldn't doubt him.

...I think that's misplaced too. I'm scared because I already misapplied that hope. I'm scared because I came so close to hurting him, had it not been for that blessed reality split.

Ironically.

Maybe not even. But we'll get to that. The fact is that I was looking for hope where it couldn't be found, but I was so desperate to get it right that I somehow dragged him into it--

He chose to be 'dragged into it', Jewel. He wanted to protect you, to get you to see what the heck was actually going on, but unfortunately you couldn't see anything clearly and frankly he was going about it the wrong way.

Maybe...

Yeah, he was. It got you really bleeding confused and I don't blame him for trying, but geez, you couldn't see straight so how the heck were you going to see that? I'll talk to him about that later, but you need to at least accept that he's okay, save for his concern for you, and although yeah, you screwed up big time, at least now you can make sure that doesn't ever happen again.

I will. And I want this to be the last time I ever have to make that promise. I want this to be IT. I want this solved for good.

Well I think we're pretty darn close.

We are?

Yeah, no kidding. This year has been phenomenal in terms of development and learning and all that jazz. We've made exponential progress. And now your anniversary is coming up, and really, if that's not going to be one of the most significant events of the year I'm going to be pretty freakin' surprised.

I wouldn't blame you, no.

So. Now what?

Discussion-wise?

Yeah. I think we've beaten this dead horse long enough. You need some serious sleep after what you went through today.

Wait, wait.

What?

Well, first off, it's not dead, it's still very relevant.

Yeah, but we've said all we can say about it already, and these conversations always end up echoing each other because you still haven't taken that one big step out of it yet.

Which one, the self-doubt?

That and the black-and-white hope problem. Maybe we didn't fully understand all that before, but it was there.

True.

Now what the heck did you interrupt me for?

Uh... what do I do about the static?

What do you mean? Getting rid of it?

Well, that, and... that first, actually. I don't want to go near it again but I don't want it scarring me.

Then throw it the heck out. You can do that, can't you?

I guess so. I'll have to try. I just don't want it to come back, and that's the real problem.

Oh. You need help with that then, huh?

Yeah. No matter how much my mind tries to convince itself that it was just another case of bad fiction lag, I know it was real, and that is... traumatic, really.

No kidding.

And it's now the biggest trigger I have, as well as what's fueling my current slips. To say the least.

So just let go of it. Or are you having bone problems?

Was that a pun?

Is Spine suffering from this too?

I... inevitably. I am so sorry.

Take that up with her, not me. But you really need to stop dwelling on that triggering memory because it is causing inner projection problems and those are literally deadly.

I know.

But I think you don't want to let go of it.

...I do. I just... I don't know if I can run from it. It's there, whether I like it or not.

Yeah, no kidding... also, can I just say that this music is actually gorgeous?

Thanks. It's Kyle Landry's stuff. He's a huge inspiration to me right now.

I'm not surprised. Anyway. Why can't you run?

...That's a touchy subject. I... well, would it be selfish if I allowed that 'static' to get between me and... that side of the situation?

Not if it's bloody triggering you to death.

But you said to let go of it.

I said to let go of dwelling on it so freaking much. I didn't say ignore the fact that it hurts like hell, and if you put yourself directly into that situation you are going to suffer whether you like it or not.

So what do I do? That kind of changes a lot of plans, Laurie.

Does it really? I think you've been denying your own needs again.

I can't tell.

No kidding. You don't know what you need, not that far ahead, not in such a general sense. But I'll tell you one thing, right now, in total honesty. You do NOT need that.

...

I'm serious. I've seen how you've been reacting to it lately. You think that when you start shutting things out like you are that there isn't a problem? You're doing the exact same thing you did back in 2008. This is a serious problem, and with this added static, you do not need this torture.

I don't want to hurt anyone.

Tough. If they allow it to hurt them it will. If they don't, it won't. Hey, there's some good advice for you!

It... it is, yeah.

Don't deny the freaking pain, though. There is a careful balance there.

So... if it hurts, accept that it's there, but don't let it rule my actions and thoughts?

Exactly. The static is bloody terrifying, huh?

You have no idea.

Yeah, and thank God I don't. But... actually, wait up. Are you sure you don't want me to know about that stuff?

Yes. Oh man, Laurie, God help me but I don't ever want something like that touching you. I want to keep you safe from that.

Huh. Well that's... an unusual reaction. Was it really that freaking bad?

Yeah.

Hm. Well. Point still stands. I don't know what it is, I don't want to, you don't want me to either. But it's hurting you more than I'm happy with, and you seem to be letting it because you're afraid you're going to hurt yourself even more if you 'let go,' right?

Yeah.

Because of the other side of the situation.

I don't know why I'm so concerned about that.

You're compassionate, kid. Sometimes too much so. You've been hurt, unintentionally, sure, but hurt is hurt. Problem is you're letting that rot in the back of your mind and it's causing a lot of disease up front. Let the rotten thing go. Accept that it happened, and that it hurt, and that it's a problem you CANNOT ignore. But don't let the bloody thing taint your every waking moment!

What do I do about it, though?

What can you do about it? Last time I checked, you had exactly 0% influence on that situation and everything surrounding it.

You know, I think there's another side to this. I feel weirdly... betrayed?

Betrayed?

Deceived. Lied to by omission, maybe. Not offended, no, but deeply unsettled. Like... I know why that never came to the surface. That is dead obvious. But the fact that it was still under the rug while I was being invited in just... really, really disturbs me.

I don't blame you.

So what do I do? I don't want to bring it up or anything. I'd rather leave it under the rug. If that's where you want to keep it, fine. But don't expect me to go anywhere near it, please.

Then say that to them.

I can't. I told you I don't even want to think about this.

But it's obviously causing a heck of a lot of tension. And then like I said, you have the shutout problem from three years ago happening again. They're going to wonder.

I don't want them to. Geez, I just... can we please drop this subject? I'd rather leave that in the shadows and move on.

Leaving it in the shadows doesn't change the fact that it's strongly affecting you and you're not going to be able to keep up the act, J.

I was traumatized, okay? I've been through... no, that's me refusing to let go of the past again.

Acknowledge that it hurt. Don't get dragged down by it.

Okay. I went through hell. I don't know how that applies to this.

Same bloody topic.

...I guess, bottom line is, I'm deeply disturbed by all this and although I can't really judge it is still not something I can associate with or be anywhere near. Stuff like that.

You don't want anything to do with it.

Yeah. But it's skewing my perspective something fierce. I can't understand it, at all, and it feels totally and utterly wrong to me. That's fueling my doubt/hope problem, and it's causing me to torture myself again because I can't accept that even if I see it as completely unacceptable, someone else might not, and that doesn't make either of our viewpoints invalid, because I guess stuff like that is subjective?

You just can't accept the fact that something that was so black to you can be relatively problem-free for someone else.

I guess not. Is that safe to do? Is it right?

I don't think that's any of your concern, really. Take care of yourself first. If it's not something you have an objective answer to, like this bloody topic, then don't even bother. Other people have their own lives and they need to figure out their own problems on their own.

I guess so.

I know so. You're lucky you have me, but heck, most people don't.

How does that apply to...?

Because I help you figure out this mess. That's because you're too bloody naive and hopeful to stick to your guns, though. You feel your own truths strongly, but you respect those of others just as much, and the problem is you keep putting people on pedestals even through all this hellish static, and it's hurting you really freaking bad.

Am I really doing that?

Why the heck else would you still be trying to justify their actions to yourself? You hold other people in such high esteem that the thought that they might be doing something 'irreconcilable' in some sense is unacceptable. So you put yourself through hell for their sake. That's where the misguided hope comes from too, Jewel. Your hope is different from theirs, but you still kept pushing on because their hope is still valid to you.

Isn't it?

Not if you're choking on your own blood for their sake. Altruism in moderation, boy. Let them solve their own freaking problems for heaven's sake.

...

You don't have to be everyone's hero. That's called being obtrusive.

Haha, I suppose so...

I'm serious.

So am I.

Then stop it. Be your own hero and let everyone else do the same.

But can't I still help people?

Only if they ask for it. Don't barge on in there because you have some sort of savior complex. If they have their doors open, and you won't be screwing anything up by projecting or something equally myopic, then you can walk over and ask if you're what they're looking for. Otherwise, stay on your own freakin' side of the street.

...

Give it a shot, at least. If nothing else it'll take a heck of a lot of stress off your back.

All right. But...

But you're still a father, huh.

...

She's trying to be your hero too, you know. Be careful.

...I'll have to be. I don't want her putting herself in harms way for my sake.

Too bad, that's what love does sometimes.

I mean... I... is that bad?

Look at that butterfly boy you know. You can go too bloody far.

...

Chaos too.

God knows, I know.

You do the same for them both.

You do that for me! Laurie, how many times have you--

That's my bloody job, Jewel.

It's not a job. Not like that. Now you're the one redefining words.

I'm using your definition.

...

Fine, it's not a job. It's my life. You're my life. Of course I'm going to do everything I can for you. But guess what? You ASK me to. You rely on me, you look up to me, and so help me but if that's not explicit permission to help however I possibly can then I don't know what is. Point is, how many people outside of our little gang do that for you? Not many, huh?

I... I guess not, no. That's actually surprising.

Because you assume. You've got that protector streak and you kinda feel guilty when you can't help, or when you aren't asked. You take it personally.

Sometimes.

Work on it. In the meantime, yeah, I'm still your 'superego,' you're still a 'father' in our sense of the word, which you also need to be seriously careful with, and Chaos loves you just as much as you love him. And that's a lot of love. But I repeat, don't put yourself on death's doorstep for our sakes if you can help it.

Not worth it, huh?

No, it's not. You think I like seeing you suffer like this? In a way I appreciate the thought, sure, but the bloody thing is misplaced, and suffering isn't always the best option, Jewel.

I wouldn't want to see you at death's doorstep if you could help it, either.

Exactly. Now we're talking. So listen to Delphi and do this thing in moderation, aiite?

Sounds good to me.

There you go. There's the closest thing you're gonna get to a New Year's resolution.

That and to stop being a perfectionist.

True. Guess what time it is.

Too late?

It's late enough. You all right to close this up now?

Possibly.

You want to talk about the blue guy, don't you.

I always want to talk about Chaos. I just do.

That's called love overflow and you have an ocean's worth of it. So what's the topic?

Concerning him?

Well, obviously.

Um... well we already discussed how worried I was about him concerning my recent fallout.

And I assured you he is fine. Just really worried. Kind of like me.

I'm not surprised.

So what's next up? Your anniversary?

I guess. Yeah, actually, that works. I'm worried because all this fallout is also a side effect of... exhaustion, on all levels, and because of that burning me out I haven't been able to spend any real time with him since October 12th. Ditto that with you.

Hm. And you guys had a bit of a tough time for about a month preceding that, too, right?

As far as I remember, yeah.

Time flies, huh?

Oh man, you bet. Can you believe I wasn't really centered until July? And we didn't find out what Xenophon was to us until September! It all feels like a lifetime ago.

Well, time isn't linear, and you're the one wearing the trenchcoats and red bows.

Only sometimes.

That's enough time for it to work, kid. Zero is infinity, right?

Precisely what I want to discuss.

Haha, sure. Lay it on me.

Well... I don't want any of this fallout to affect this Friday. I want to be with him, no matter what.

Hey, remember what I said about the self-sacrifice.

Oh. Sorry. Within reason, then. I won't go playing board games with Death just to achieve that.

You would, though.

I would, but it wouldn't be the best option.

Now we're talking. So what, is that why we're still discussing stuff on here at this hour? You want to make sure everything is perfect for Friday, hello again irony?

Very funny, and I actually wouldn't mind if that was the case.

Well no kidding, love is love. But you do realize you already have the answers to solving this. We discussed 'em all, and even if we didn't you know you've got them all at heart the way it is.

Was that a pun too?

Could be. Depends on whether or not you hoped it was.

Then that's a yes. Do you mind?

Heh, no. But enough of the injokes. You going to settle this for Friday?

Unavoidably. Absolutely. I couldn't not settle it.

No, I think you're missing my point. I don't just mean calming down about this subject like you are now. I mean legitimately getting over the perfectionism and hero complex and all that. I mean realizing that you messed up in the past but that's done and over with. Forgive yourself for once, really. Leave that trouble in the past and live in the now, as you always say you're trying to do. Do it. Let the static be where it is, don't get all agitated over it, buy some freakin' gray paint, and let everyone else live their own lives unless they specifically ask you to intervene. And even then you have a CHOICE whether or not you accept that offer!

That last part is important, yeah.

No kidding. "Hey, can you help me out?" means you need to honestly check your own reserves and abilities, and you have every right to say "sorry, I'd love to, but if I did I'd probably end up landing a full-time job pushing up daisies..."

Oh geez, haha, that's one way to put it.

Hey, I'm not wrong, and that's the point. You can say something along those lines, you know. "Can you help me" does not translate to "if you don't help me, you're a failure as a human being and your obvious lack of concern for my predicament is a damnable offense." Heck no. It means they'd appreciate it if you could help, but if you can't, you bloody can't-- and that doesn't mean you bite the bullet again and force yourself to say you can, either.

True.

Sure, but you're not doing it yet.

I'll put it into action starting right now.

You'd better. And we're way off topic, sorry.

Haha, that's okay. We were just saying what I need to work on in order for Friday to really be as... important? What word am I looking for?

Honest?

Honest. Yeah. I need to get myself straightened out before I can be as honest as I need to be. Before Friday can be really genuine, I need to get all the fear and doubt and regret out of myself.

Exactly. And you can ask him or me for help, you know.

What do you think we're doing right now, love. I needed to talk and here we are.

Well, whaddya know. You're right.

I will at least run this by Chaos tomorrow, or tonight, if you don't get to him first.

Considering the time, I'd leave that up to me. Talk to him tomorrow just to see what his perspective is on it. The guy's got some seriously good ideas when it comes to this sort of thing.

No kidding! We were actually discussing my 'idea projection' problem the other day and he came up with this brilliant metaphor for it concerning paint jobs... well maybe that was me, but he really cleared it up and it made a lot more sense once he was done with it.

That sounds like how you two work, yeah.

Very funny, Laur.

No, really. You're more unbound and spontaneous in communicating things like that. You're bursting with ideas but have no bloody idea how to put them into words, so you ramble on for a few paragraphs and then try to make sense of whatever you said. But Chaos is really tuned into you so he picks up on the essence of it. You start rambling and he catches those ideas and defines 'em for you. It works.

Yeah, it does. He helps to get me in working order, ironically.

Well you do the same thing to him, you know. It balances out. Yin-yang unions and all that.

True.

You guys going to bring that up on Friday or what?

The cosmically inseparable point? Well obviously, that's inevitable. Why?

Just curious. It's a really deep point.

It is. So that and rifle recoil are definitely on the list for the 23rd.

Haha, awesome.

It is! I mean really, that is some hardcore synchronicity. "If I'm ever blue" was a quote from the song "I do," which was on the album 0 = ∞, which was released in 2008. Come on.

2008 significance? Pray tell.

Really, Laurie. 2008 was the starting point for everything we're going through right now, in a sense. It was the catalyst.

Didn't the "rainbows" entry happen in 2008?

Uh... let me check... yes, yes it did. Wow.

What the heck, dude.

Hahaha, exactly!

Too much synchronicity with you two, everywhere.

Hey, it means something.

No kidding it means something. You two are really bloody important.

In what sense, love?

A couple of 'em. And what's with the sudden terms of endearment?

Not much. I just love you too is all.

Yeah, and don't I know it. But this week isn't about me. It's about you and Chaos.

True. But you do tie into that.

But this week still isn't about me.

I guess not, at least not in that sense.

It isn't. Don't be so afraid to cut me out of it. It's the truth.

I just hope I can pull it off.

What?

Friday. I'm going to have to put some serious time aside to get a heavy link in for that.

Then do that.

I will, that's for certain, but... I'm nervous, hilariously enough.

How the heck are you nervous?

I haven't been with him that closely in a while.

Well you've tried to be.

Sure, but trying to achieve it and actually getting there are two vastly different things. Plus, a lot has happened between October 12th and now, most notably me becoming rather shockingly fragile.

You've always been rather shockingly fragile, and you two didn't even fully connect on the 12th. I would have remembered that.

True... anyway, I meant more fragile than previously. I don't know if it's because of how different the few hacks I've had have been, or what, but I'm like... emotionally raw right now.

How so?

I am really, really fragile. In a clear way. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I know that if I get that close to him, especially after last week, I am going to absolutely shatter.

Hey, that's what happened on January 16th, and that didn't end badly at all.

Geez, Laurie, one impossible spirit kid is enough, no matter how much I love her.

That's not what I was insinuating, you maniac. I just meant that it's not bad. It's honest, which is what you want. It's selfless, which is what you want. I say you keep that fragility going until Friday, which means stop ignoring your honest emotions and forgive yourself from what you didn't do wrong last week.

I... yeah, I do need to do that.

To answer your unasked question, yeah, you didn't screw up as badly as you thought you did. You slipped today, sure. But on Friday, or whenever the heck it was, you may have lost your footing for a while but all things considered, you actually managed to pull through that decently well.

I still shouldn't have been in that situation.

Maybe. Maybe not. But you didn't hurt Chaos and you didn't scar from it, even if it did scare you because you got your thoughts all mixed up as usual. Refer back to everything we've said tonight if you're already unsure on that again.

The guilt is still sticking around because I know how badly I messed up my hope, and I should have known better.

True. But you don't need to drown in guilt from it.

I guess not.

Chaos is fine, I'll say that again.

I know he's fine, I just... at the time, I had no idea what to think because I didn't recognize the split. You know, how I was stuck in the physical.

Yeah, you do need to pay more attention there.

But he's okay. And that is what threw me off the most because I didn't understand why. I do now, and I won't go back to abusing deceased equines, but I just want to reiterate for my own sake that the reason he was so 'blameless' compared to me is because he never held what I considered blameworthy in the first place.

And you need to stop being so bloody hard on yourself about that in any case. You know he loves you. He does. I don't think he realized how viciously you were judging yourself at the time, but you and I both know that if he felt you were in serious danger he would NOT have let anything happen.

I know. And in a weird way I kind of... wasn't in danger, then. Only because he was there.

Well, you were getting dangerously close to danger and we both know that too. But he did keep you from going over the edge, or slipping off.

I know.

Hey, better idea. Talk about this stuff to him instead of me. I'm only speaking as a guardian here. I can't talk about the actual scenario because I wasn't there. I'm only speaking from what I know of it, and what I know of how you invariably react to such things.

I think I will run that by him again, yeah. But we're kind of off topic!

Again.

Yep.

I think that's because it's way too late to really get involved in that sort of topic.

Maybe.

No, really. You're already starting a slow shutdown, and I'm just trying to get the major concerns through to you before that happens. I'm sorry if we are 'off topic,' but really, we should have a conversation with him before the 23rd gets here and maybe that'll be the better option here.

Makes sense. I mean, there's only so much I can say about the guy anyway before I dissolve into weird poetic love-induced language.

Man, you write some good stuff in those states though.

I know, but they wear me out too. And the point is that I talk about Chaos way too much the way it is.

"Way too much" by whose standards?

Not mine, haha.

Well there you go. You want to talk? Go right ahead. I do not mind.

Stupid question.

Stupid answer, throw it at me.

Relationship dynamics, really. I was teasing Chaos about being frenemies with you for no real reason. Feedback?

I already told you I don't hate people but that's hilarious. Still, Chaos is the same, deep down in all that water, and you know that better than I do, J. He gets really freaking angry, yeah, but he also cares way too bloody much. It's why he gets so bent out of shape. He never really hated me, just what I did. Yes, I know exactly what incident you're thinking about. And, again, I've never hated him either.

Yeah. Sorry. I guess that was a very sleep-deprived question.

That and you are obviously trying to segue into heart discussion.

Well maybe not literally.

Haha, that is such a weak spot for you.

It really really is. That gets us back on topic too. Friday. Fragility. Shattering and things.

You think that if he gets close enough you're going to fall to pieces in a good way.

Well yeah. But being that fragile is kind of... intimidating?

To whom?

Me? That's not the right word, really. It's... kind of. Overwhelming.

Ah.

Yeah. Maybe somewhat apprehensive. It's not bad and I'm not scared. Just... I know that it is so freaking true that I am going to feel so much from him and with our Virtue feedback that is going to be...

Insane.

To say the least.

How does your Virtue feedback work again?

Well he's an empath through his name, and I hold Catharsis. So mine works as an amplifier. He feels stuff from me the way it is, but with my feedback that doubles it to and from him, and mine naturally makes everything stronger, and I don't know how to explain it at this hour because my specific language skills are not working.

You're going into dissolving poet mode.

Precisely. Practically. Possibly. I'm not sure what I'm talking about.

You're running on a dangerous amount of fatigue and you are seriously stressed from what you've been going through recently, and what you are about to go through during this lovely holiday week.

It is lovely.

No kidding. But seriously, you should really get to sleep.

Not yet, Laurie. I say interesting things at this hour. No barriers. Kind of floaty? All snow-like.

Ah, Apprentice mode.

Yeah! Kind of. Sparkles. The... the feeling I got in that dream, under the searchlight.

I know what you mean, yeah. Wide-eyed wonder and all that, huh?

Mm-hmm.

I really think you should sign off and go talk to Chaos like this. You remember the last time that happened, don't you?

I think so. I remember the love one. Paragraphs.

Heh, yeah. He told me he wished he had written that all down. Apparently you got really eloquent.

Poet mode, Laurie. It happens. But I felt the truth and wanted to say it. Three words hold the essence of billions and I was just trying to catch at least a glimmer of that. Just to explain it.

I know, we've discussed this. So you insist on staying logged in, then.

Yeah. For a little while longer. Give me a topic.

Give you a topic?

Sure. Go ahead.

Kaleidoscopes.

What?

I just thought of that. A few months back already, I remember Chaos mentioning something about a 'kaleidoscope' metaphor you'd come up with? We never got to discuss that. So there's your topic. Tell me about this kaleidoscope thing.

Okay. It was a way of describing people and relationships and things. I thought of how some people go through life looking for a specific person. "I want the perfect man or woman." They have to fit this criteria and I won't settle for less! That kind of thing.

Yeah.

So that bothered me. I wondered how many people they missed that way? I never really stuck to one person. I loved a lot of people and I wanted to do that forever. I never had a type or a criteria list or a perfect person! I started doing that later for unknown reasons and maybe that was perfectionist too but it made me think of the kaleidoscopes. You've got... all these little pieces in there. Stars and hearts and sequins and bits of glitter or whatever. I don't know. But lots of different shapes in different sizes and colors and there's so many of them. Right?

Sure.

Man I am floating away. Give me a second. So I thought that's a good way of describing the cumulative result of a relationship search. Treating it as one entire object, not just a concept? I suppose. But looking for one person, one specific sort of man or woman or whatever, is like only wanting one certain shape or size or color piece in your kaleidoscope because that's your favorite. Well when you do find that piece you think you're all set, but then you realize that's the only piece you have and it bothers you because you weren't really thinking of the whole picture. First off, a person isn't a goal to set. A person is a person. Even if they do fit your criteria they can change. They can be a circle today and a triangle tomorrow. Purple on Tuesdays and gold on Christmas, who knows. But even so, you only have one piece if that's all you've focused on. Some people are so bent on getting a 'perfect relationship' that they ignore their friends and families in the process. You're leaving out all those pieces! So to get back on topic, what makes kaleidoscopes so beautiful is that every time you look at them they are different, all flowing and moving and sparkling. And there are so many different pieces in them. So a life should have relationships like that. Have people that you love in so many different ways and let them be however they are, wherever and whenever they are too, because you can't put love in a box or you start to forget how it shines when the light is free to dance through it. You can't label it as 'this or that and nothing else' or you're not going to get the same beautiful display you would if it was free to grow and just be itself. I know it was a long time before we had that labeling conversation, Laurie, but you made me think of kaleidoscopes, and so thank you for putting all these purple diamonds in my life because they're gorgeous.

Heh. That's amazing. And you are forever welcome for those diamonds.

That made sense, right? I hope.

I think it made more sense than it would have if you tried to discuss it in that sober perfectionist mindset of yours, kid.

Outside of the early morning hours I am just a chilled out secretly volatile snowstorm.

That's me too, kid, but without the ice, obviously.

You, are a thunderstorm. Stormclouds with the night sky still showing through. Something like that. Lightning and constellations.

All right, you seriously need sleep.

No wait. Poetic.

What, are you going to seriously write about Chaos Zero at this hour? It's almost 1 AM, Jewel.

I don't know. I don't think I'm that far gone.

I'd be concerned if you were. You seriously need recovery time after today. Get your butt to work.

Oh dude, my boss. He misses me and I miss him. I was just talking to him.

Join the club, I think I have more discussions with him than you do.

Maybe. I wouldn't know. But you probably do. I'm always so exhausted at night.

Seriously, why the hell do you want to stay awake right now?

It's quiet and this music is awesome and I miss talking to you.

Well we were supposed to have one of these bloody things every week this year, you know. But then the freaking psych ward happened.

And you were supposed to swear less, sweetheart.

Too bleeding bad, sparkleface, I do what I want.

Haha. No it's okay, I honestly do not mind. But I would like to talk more, except this is very tiring, and hey maybe that's why I'm doing a slow shutdown.

Sheesh, are you still coping with psychic exhaustion on top of this?

Maybe. I don't know. I do have a bit of a headache but those have been pretty common recently.

Geez. No, I can't have you burning out this week. Close this up.

Can we talk tomorrow? I think I just miss you, a lot.

Yeah, if we have time we'll talk tomorrow.

Sorry for sounding so utterly high right now. It's hilarious but even though I'm trying to communicate clearly I am just floating and it is hard to speak in a less disjointed manner?

That's it. You close this up and go spend at least two minutes with Chaos just to see what sort of language he pulls out of you. Aiite?

Sounds good to me. I hope you don't mind if I change the music.

To what-- oh, Dare Gale. I swear you are addicted to this song.

It is so pretty. It's perfect for this hour. It sounds like an ocean. Remember the night we all sang together?

Oh yeah. Man, you channeled this one, didn't you.

First time I heard it, yeah. So I'm partial to it.

And we all played "I do," didn't we.

Yeah. You and that guitar. I love it. It's obligatory to listen to that song when it's on shuffle, no matter how long it is.

I don't know, Jewel.

Don't know what?

Just you. I think I get what you mean by saying how bleeding honest you are at this hour.

Am I effervescing?

I think so, yeah.

Good. That means I'm not blocked off. I was afraid maybe I was. But fear just kind of melts off when I'm like this.

Maybe that's unconsciously why you're sticking around, you think?

Makes sense. But I think I will go give some of this to Chaos and see what it does to him. Us.

You'd better.

I can't stop feeling about Friday. As opposed to thinking. I'm not anxious but wow. It's significant and really it's making me feel like one of those golden waterfall fireworks? Christmas tree lights. Or frozen raindrops, you know like when it rains and it freezes on the trees and in the morning everything is made of crystal. Rainbows, everywhere.

That's what you feel like, huh.

On the inside. Thanks to him. As usual. But... this song. The chords in it, just... you know what Chaos feels like when he's kind of like this? Up late and way too honest by somebody's standards and feeling more than he can keep to himself? He feels like city streetlights and... and faded photographs and stars. Like looking up at the sky at night, and everything is quiet around you but you can feel the life in it all... and the stars are out but not the moon so it's this silent sort of otherworldly glow. Like a promise. Like that night I stood out on the ocean docks and looked up through billions of lightyears and there wasn't a sound but my heart, and maybe a language I couldn't hear in words. Like that.

...

Seriously he is gorgeous and I know I say that all the time but he is. And that word does him no justice. Laurie I don't know if you get that with anyone but when I look at him it just, it kills me. It's death and rebirth all over again. It's a second chance every second but the right way, and I know I misplace hope but that isn't it, that is complete certainty, that is turning it into faith. Faith in the impossible because nothing is impossible really. Have you ever seen how blue he is? I... and his eyes, God, his eyes are the most beautiful things in the world. I can't put words to those. Laurie, when he talks to me at night I end up in tears because there he is, this ancient strange creature, this god of destruction and this oceanic maelstrom... this absolute paragon of inspiration, that's why I write about him all the time, I can't help it. But he talks to me and he's right there, just like that, this amazing individual and the way he looks at me is incomparable. I could write about that for the rest of my life and I couldn't describe it. I can't believe it. Chaos Zero, he loves me, do you have any idea how beautiful that is? I mean, God, I would give him my heart and soul in an instant but I think he would do the same for me and I still can barely believe that.

He would do the same. He absolutely would.

Well there you go. You know I found a song by Fantastic Plastic Machine that describes us. "When I pull you close to me, I can feel eternity. No need for words tonight." I think that's what's going to happen on Friday. Words stop working when you feel this much. You stop talking and all you can do is fall into infinity together because that is the only thing that can do your feelings justice. Do you know what that feels like? Laurie, I'm sorry, I don't want you to feel like you're missing out on things but if I could...

No, Jewel, it's fine. Keep going.

Keep going?

Keep going.

I'm just incredulous is all. I'm asking you these questions rhetorically. It's so amazing, that I've been able to experience this, I will never get used to it and thank God for that. Were you not led here? Didn't every single moment lead up to this one? Nice freaking coincidence, pardon my language, but I'm not worrying about sounding selfish anymore because I've been given so many more chances to get this right and you need to balance out self-sacrifice too. Moderation is important. But you can't overdose on love, not the real kind. Not the building blocks of life. It's true, July 7th was like a flashbulb. Cosmically inseparable... that's beyond comprehension. And yet I understand it completely, at heart. God. This is amazing. 8 years, a sideways lemniscate, you equal infinity, that's what I should say to him. Because he does. Laurie I am just rambling now but it's because the only things I could say about him at this point are so incredibly close and true that I think my heart would break just typing them. Ironically.

I think I know what you mean. You don't have to write about that then.

Oh but it is the most important thing Laurie. Isn't that sad, in a way? Is that the right word? How the closest things are so close that you can't talk about them, but they're the most important, the most gorgeous. There's that word again, it tries so hard but it falls short every time. Not it's fault. Language just doesn't work with... with this sort of thing. Laurie?

Yeah?

You remember October 12th. Right?

Of course.

You know that complete honesty. How you have to basically trust the other person with your life, even just to get close. Because it's that sincere.

Yeah.

Take that... up to the next level. Literally trust them with your life, in getting that close. Sincerity. That's what 8 years is about. My words are falling apart and I'm sorry.

You don't have to keep talking if it's too difficult, Jewel.

Yeah I think I need to go talk to Chaos himself at this point. All the love I'm feeling is completely too absolute to put into indirect poetry things. I need to give it to him, even in words, because this is his after all.

Does he ever say things like this to you?

I do the talking love. He's quieter. I'm fire and he's water. But he does speak up and when he does it absolutely drowns me. There's something indescribably amazing about hearing him, him, say these kinds of things to me. Even if it's not as disjointed and abstract. He's more direct because sometimes I get a little too overwhelmed by the truth that he's there. I don't doubt but it's almost too much to take in.

But does he ever get poetic?

He tries. He doesn't get this disjointed easily, which is good because then we wouldn't get anywhere. But I did see him get poetic, one or two times. Genuinely. Getting this far and into the fanciful language. Why?

I don't know. Hearing you talk like this... I guess I'm just curious as to what sorts of things he'd say about you.

You're a fangirl.

I am.

I love you too. Really I should write about you like this. I could. It's not hard.

I'm sure it isn't.

No, Laurie, you're not getting the significance. It's the same sort of stuff, the same words. It might take a little longer because you feel different. Might take a little while to find different words. But it's the same level.

Is that a paradox?

The words? No, just the wrong use. It's the same meaning in what I say. I love you a lot. But I would have to use different words because Chaos feels like the depths but you feel like this great boundless thing. Like when you think about the surface of the earth, how it's so important but you don't realize just how important? But mostly that feeling like it's everywhere, and powerful, but it's holding everything else up. You don't feel like a thunderstorm but when people take photographs of lightning, you feel like setting those photographs on fire. You're really hard to explain, Laurie!

I can see that.

Now you're bottling up. Come on, you're already rerouting this poetic license, you're going to have some strange literature to your name in the morning if you keep this up.

What, you're giving all that inspiration to me?

No, it's inevitable. It's just moving to you. Why do I feel like I'm literally floating. It's just that you are just as inspirational and I love you just as much but in different quadrants, so to speak, but Laurie that is a really dark red diamond and honestly I'm not sure what that means but I am so thankful that you're in my life. That I'm in yours. It's wonderful how everything just works. I don't know where I'd be without you. I don't. You're a shrapnel-guided hurricane but the sun shines through you and wherever you go people are left in shock but everything is so new.

Death and rebirth, huh.

You too, see? I'm not sure how to describe how you look at me. Like right now. Don't look away, please Laurie, that actually hurts a little.

It's not you, it's me. And I think your iTunes playlist wants you to spend the night with someone else.

Aliens.

Chaos happens, man.

To me, beautifully so, God I am so blessed this is crazy. I can't believe I never realized how unbelievably gorgeous he looks as Perfect, why did I never see that when I was younger, or at least until 2006, there's that word again. I should be talking about you, Laurie. I'm not getting tired of you.

Hit the shuffle button again, kid. I want to see what we get.

Cursed by love so dire. Hm. Not sure what his thought process was on that line but it's interesting. And we just got StH music.

I told you the universe wants you to be with someone else right now.

But I love you too.

I know.

...

But this isn't about me right now. It's not.

I love you too though. I can't emphasize that enough.

Jewel, stop it. You're making me tear up and that is ridiculous at this hour.

Why? I usually only end up in tears early in the morning too. You feel more at this hour.

Yeah, but... kid, you should be asleep and I should be getting back to work. But no, I'm here listening to you write poetry about water monsters and talking about me like I'm some sort of superhero.

You are, to me. I asked you to be so there you are.

Heh, I guess so.

But it is late. It just hit me, right now, how late it is.

Just now?

Just now.

That's bloody hilarious. All right, then close up.

Wait, no.

Jewel, come on. It is seriously late.

I love you.

...I know. I really know.

I don't know if I'm expressing it correctly.

Jewel, there are no bloody rules when it comes to love. And if someone put some up, break 'em.

Good. I can do that. Thank you.

No, thank you. And I am not joking when I say I want you to go talk to Chaos when you're done in here.

For two minutes?

I don't care how long, just talk to him.

I will. Sorry about the disjointed talking and staying up late.

Kid, it's not a problem. I kind of needed this, in a weird way.

Really?

Yeah. I miss talking to you too. And... I don't see this side of you very often.

Because Chaos usually gets it.

He gets most of you, haha.

He gets all of me, who are you kidding. Well, paradoxically. Because I love lots of people. Including you.

Chaos still gets dibs on all the serious material though.

Well of course. 8 years this Friday, you know.

Not if you don't get to sleep.

Really?

Yeah, you need to draw something for it.

Oh man I do. I really want to draw him but dude I do need sleep.

Why didn't I think of this earlier, haha.

All right, sorry, I think that's as good a line to close up on as any.

Wait, no, not yet.

Wait what?

I love you too.

Laurie. You're brilliant. Thank you.

Anytime, J. Now that's a good line to close up on.

It is! And so it also is.

Heh, whatever you say.