(Don't Worry About This Page)

WHOM

Whom.

Is it a question?

Is it a name?

Is it a being?

The word whom has always existed.

This we know.

It did not have a form.

It did not have a name.

How could it, when nothing and no one existed to speak it?

So the letter o in whom created a point in which all could exist.

This was the first point.

This was the whomphalos.

The word whom expanded around itself.

The letter o had created the 0th dimension.

The letter w grew headstrong. It created a new dimension, the first dimension.

The word whom could now move in a line.

This was the axis of the world.

The letter m knew that a new concept, a new quality, must exist for action to occur in more than 0 dimensions.

So the letter m created time.

The whomphalos remained the nexus, the center of the universe.

The m remained beside the o, and absorbed its kindness.

The h remained beside the o, and absorbed its wisdom.

But the w grew greedy.

It wanted the power of the whomphalos for itself.

One dimension was not enough for the w.

And, exactly three hundred fourteen seconds into the universe’s existence, a great evil entered it.

The w created a new dimension, the second dimension. This gave it the ability to move over the h.

For all its wisdom, the h had no physical substance. It was little more than spirit.

The h could do naught to stop the w.

The w leapt over the h, and onto the o.

But the whomphalos would not allow itself and its magic to be stolen so easily.

The whomphalos made the most terrible decision possible, for it was the only possible decision.

It rolled.

The whomphalos rolled, and as it rolled, time and space warped and bent, and a third dimension was created. 

Time became a circle, a cycle.

Before the great rolling, time continued indefinitely. Time was tangible, definable.

Now, the only way one could be aware of the existence of time was by measuring it, which could only happen if an event occurred periodically.

Time became a circle and wrapped itself up in space during the great rolling.

The whomphalos rolled, and the w fell off the whomphalos and onto the m.

The link between the o and the m was severed.

The m flew off into space.

A new word had been created, a devil-word, born from the severance of the sacred word whom.

The word, the accursed word, the second word ever to exist.

Who.

Time continued to roll, but with the letter m gone, the sacred word itself fractured, time did not know what to do. The letter m had created time.

In a desperate attempt to save the m, time rolled in the opposite direction.

The w flew back through the air and landed in its place.

Time rolled backward, but memory did not.

The letter w was back before the h.

The h was before the o.

The m drifted through space

in the opposite direction

and once again found itself part of the word

whom.

The word who still existed, if only as an idea,

beneath the universe.

The word whom knew it needed to combat this evil.

So it created a shape, a form, a body for itself,

and a plane on which to use that body.

It created a strong back to support itself.

It created two strong legs with which to traverse the world,

and four strong arms with which to touch and sense.

It created a Beast.

And the Beast was the Word.

And the Beast was the Author.

And the Beast was the Plane.

And the Beast was the Bog.

And from the Bog, the Zirin flowers grew.

The Zirin flowers were the first living things

in the universe.

We pick them still,

to remember.

TIME

The Beast traveled the Plane.

But a thick fog grew around the outsides of the Plane.

The Beast grew eyes, like searchlights, and looked through the fog

to what was Beyond.

The darkness of who remained, below the Plane,

but above the Plane, in the Cave of Eternity,

Time nursed its wounds.

(They were numerous and deep

as the roots of the Tree of Liberty.)

Mother Time knew

she could never again

turn backwards.

The damage she had caused was irreversible, irreparable.

Mother Time spoke.

“Whom,” quoth she.

A weapon appeared in her hand.

Three prongs had it, and its name was Exitium, Almighty Slicer of the Fabric of the Universe.

Mother Time used her trident

to rip into the Fabric of the Universe

(for what else would one use the Almighty Slicer of the Fabric of the Universe for?)

and edit

the Universal Code.

Mother Time locked the duality of Time

in an infinite recursive loop,

a universe within a universe.

But Time is not a thing to be meddled with.

Nor is the Universal Code.

When Mother Time altered the Universal Code to prevent herself from ever running backward, the Shield faltered.

The Shield between the Beast that was Whom and the beast that was who faltered—only for a second, but it was enough.

A Monster, a Devil, a Creature of unimaginable horror flew through the hole in the Shield.

Time knew all was her fault.

The Monster leapt upon the Beast that was Whom.

The whomphalos was threatened.

A burst of almighty energy was released from the o.

Some have called this the Big Bang.

The Monster was slain by the burst of energy, and the word who seethed from the other side of the Shield.

The burst of energy did not only slay the Monster.

Mother Time was caught in the blast wave.

The Bang sent the goddess into a stupor. Time became comatose, sluggish. She could no longer quicken or slow her pace.

Time had been, for all intents and purposes, frozen.

The Plane itself curved, becoming a sphere.

Then, unable to withstand the force of the Bang any longer, it smashed into a million fragments.

The universe became a vast empty space, with a smattering of matter here or there.

The Beast had been wounded by the Monster, and could not arise to heal Time.

Time heals all wounds, it seems, except her own.

The reign of Time had ended.

It is said she shall wake at the end of the world.

From the rotting carcass of the Monster, a new creature emerged, a six-legged, winged creature, which immediately began to feed upon a patch of Zirin flowers.

This was the first animal.

Class Insecta, order Hemiptera, family Belostomatidae.

This was the giant water bug.

The Beast woke, rose, and saw the Bug.

The Beast morphed from a Beast into the Word once more.

The Word ascended to the Cave of Eternity, and took the place of Mother Time.

The Bug scuttled along the ground. It fed on the Zirin flowers, and grew, and evolved.

Millennia passed, and the Bug turned from a Bug into a Fish, and thence into a Frog, and thence into a Dinosaur, and thence into a Man.

The Man was of little importance to the universe.

Men come and go.

The word whom is eternal.

MAN

On an unremarkable planet called Terra,

alternatively known as Earth,

circling an unremarkable star called Sol,

alternatively known as the Sun,

there lived a group of unremarkable animals called Homo sapiens,

alternatively known as humans.

There were remarkable animals on this planet:

jellyfish that could live forever

because their ancestors had made a pact with the word whom,

whales that could grow up to hundreds of feet long

because their ancestors had come from the primordial ocean,

and, of course, giant water bugs.

Humans, however, had nothing special about them

except a bunch of extra bits and pieces inside their heads

which were really quite unnecessary.

There were special purple Zirin flowers on this planet,

known to humans as bougainvillea.

The first Humans went by many names—Adam and Eve, Epimetheus and Pandora, Askr and Embla. All of these were true names, of course: all parts of the One Name, Whom.

But it is said that Askr was unfaithful to his wife, Embla, and to his true Name.

On his deathbed, Askr called to him a scribe, and asked him to write down these his final words, and title it Love’s Litigation:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Mayhap the volta of engravèd prose?

My salt-spun words, it seems, will no more stay

Thy comely hand than thy inconstant toes.

Dear, what I mean to say, thou art a prize

O burg’ning1 beauty, covetée of man,

Which, being won, becomes less in the eyes

Of one who won, the waning win now wan;

For once the trout is caught within the net—

Although, to clarify, thou art no fish—

Once tangled, now the harder out to get,

And ‘twould be better not to have thy wish.

For if I may quote Albus Dumbledore,

Men e’er choose that which aids them not at all,

And while I do admire his candor,

It seems that he with humans e’er shall fall.

And now, my love, hark!—we have circlèd,

For love, that hearty catalyst, propelled

That headmaster from live and warm to dead,

His fall from glory quite unparalleled.

And heady is the head which heads in stride

From luxury, security, and home,

For ‘tis unlikely these will coincide

In any place that thou may chance to roam.

Thou bypass’t this when dreaming of thy dreams,

And due to this, I think it should be writ

That those who harbor exploration’s schemes

And not home-keeping youth have homely wit.

Nay, though I may be candid, slander not,

For no matter the measure of thy censure,

I call thy brain afflicted with some rot

As to be flighty and think of adventure.

The catalyst, my darling, as you say,

Is that I took to bed a passing fair,

While thou wert off in Mantua away,

But thou knew not what did I, wert not there.

My dear, I think the final point is this:

This ceaseless longing thou hast to explore

(Indeed, ultimately ‘tis not remiss)

Hast made thee lose clear sight of thy own door.

The footnote Askr placed upon the word “burg’ning” has never been found.

This confession seems straightforward enough—for a poem, that is, for Whom the great Poet is quite unfathomable—but whom does Askr reference as a passing fair?

The answer, scholars have reasoned, must be Mother Time.

Time awoke from her uneasy slumber at the creation of humankind, and sank down again once her duty had been accomplished.

Time is not passing fair, but ‘tis both fair and passing—it waits for no man, for its past experiences with man are such that it knows of man’s flightiness; and that is the great irony of Love’s Litigation.

However, humankind’s tangle with Mother Time has given them an ability unlike that of any other animal.

Human minds have the ability to project their thoughts through time.

A human mind can recall the past with near-perfect clarity on occasion. It can project the future onto the present, suppose what might happen then if a decision is made now.

This allows humans to write stories, and to remember them, and to pass them down.

Askr inadvertently caused his descendants to become

the chosen prophets

of Whom.

JELLYFISH

The king of all the Men

looked at the sky

and said “Zeus”

and nothing happened.

The king of all the Lions

looked at the sea

and said “Aslan”

and nothing happened.

But the king of all the Jellyfish

was the wisest king of all.

He looked inside himself

and said “Whom”.

And Whom appeared to him.

And Whom spoke:

“What do you seek?”

And the king of all the Jellyfish replied:

“I seek the secret of happiness.”

“This I do not possess,” quoth Whom,

“and if I did, ‘twould not be for any mortal being.”

But the king of all the Jellyfish was unsatisfied.

“If happiness doth exist,” he reasoned,

“and it is possible to obtain it, and to lose it,

then there must be a way to obtain it and remain holding it for all time.”

“Ah,” quoth Whom,

“Time is gone—not dead, but as if ‘twere.”

“Then,” said the king of all the Jellyfish,

“if I could revive Time,

would I then have the secret to happiness?”

“You do not ask to revive Time,” said Whom.

“You ask to permanently end it, to stanch its flow.”

“I wish for the removal of pain,” said the king of all the Jellyfish.

“Is it not true that Time heals all wounds?”

“And was it not well writ,” retorteth Whom,

“by the heavenly Robin in its song,

that pain is but a part of life?

If thou stopp’st pain, thou endest life.”

“Then let life end!” raged the king of all the Jellyfish.

“What care have I for life‽”

The world began in a Bang.

It will end in a Bang, and Time will awaken.

But, for only a moment, a new Bang was created, a Bang of interrogation.

This was the first interrobang.

A mark not of tranquility, but of anger and desperation, unbecoming to a Jellyfish.

Whom looked upon the ‽ which the Jellyfish had spoken.

Whom spun.

Whom rolled as the whomphalos had once rolled, as Time had once rolled.

The rolling finished, and the letter m was gone.

The Jellyfish now stood before Who.

The Jellyfish trembled down to the tips of its tentacles.

Who raged, “Thou Jellyfish, thou braggart, thou rogue, thou scoundrel, 

I have no love for you, and you have no love for life. Therefore let thy life end

by the making of it eternal.”

And Who cursed the Jellyfish

so that it would live forevermore.

With this invocation of Time, creation of the letter m,

the letter m did return.

Whom now stood, looking piteously at the king of all the Jellyfish.

The Jellyfish wept.

Sorrow overcame Whom, and Whom took one of the Jellyfish’s tentacles.

“Why do you weep, my child?” asked Whom.

“I shall live forever,” cried the Jellyfish between racked sobs, “and all my family and friends and subjects shall die around me.”

“I cannot undo a curse that I, in my alternate form, cast,” said Whom, “for Who and Whom are one and the same at the end of the world.”

The Jellyfish sobbed all the harder.

“But I can extend the range of thy whomnation,” said Whom, “to the entirety of your subjects. If you wish, all over whom you rule shall live evermore.”

“Nay,” cried the Jellyfish, “though I may suffer this pain, I do not wish for my subjects to feel the same. I shall not force my subjects to watch the world grow old and die. Pray, give eternal life to those Jellyfish over whom I do not rule, for those are none.”

“You are a wise King,” said Whom, “but I fear,

Though thy intentions true,

That this exploit withal

Shall turn from Love for you

To bitterness and gall.”

Whom ascended.

The Jellyfish returned to his people.

“I,” quoth the king of all the Jellyfish, “have been cursed to live forevermore!” And he explained all that had happened in the last hour.

The Jellyfish were outraged.

“King, indeed!” they hissed and scorned. “What King has the opportunity to give his people eternal life, and refuses?”

The king of all the Jellyfish appeared lost for words.

“You are no King of ours,” spat the Jellyfish, and they renounced the monarchy, and banished the wise King from their domain.

From then on, the king of all the Jellyfish ruled nothing and no one.

And, as the once-King had asked Whom to make immortal all those Jellyfish whom he did not rule, so the curse took effect now.

Every Jellyfish of that species was granted eternal life, the one thing they prized above all others.

They watched the world grow old and die.

They watched as Humans took and took and never gave back.

They watched as the great nuclear war split the world in two.

They were cursed to float forever in the great ocean that was Space.

They were the immortal Jellyfish.

As for the once-King, legends tell us that he disappeared into the depths of a cave, deep under the ocean.

Perhaps it was the Cave of Eternity.

THE PRIMORDIAL OCEAN

Water is a simple molecule, is it not?

Yet in that bond ‘twixt two of hydrogen and one of oxygen,

Life springs.

Life wears flowers in her hair

And a garland of bones ‘round her neck.

What flows through her veins is not blood but nectar,

And what flows from her eyes are not tears but nourishing milk.

Life is the daughter of Time.

As our mother tongue tangled with many fathers, so did our mother Time.

Our mother-time is the beginning of the world.

Our father-time is the end of it.

We are all between the two extremes

Fire and ice

Lava and water

(although water is a type of lava

made from the melting of the rock known as ice)

“And now, my love, hark!—we have circlèd,”

As the Poet, wise yet foolish, said.

Water.

Water is the beginning and the end of all things.

This is the tale of the first water.

When the Earth was not terra firma

But terra inferna,

When its shower-head spewed meteors

And it danced the celestial dance of Death.

The Earth was no place where one might have expected Life to thrive,

And Life would not have thrived

If not for a peculiar happenstance.

Four comets fell from the sky:

The legends name them

War, Hostility, Opposition, and Malice.

Yet from these four fiends

A beauty sprung.

The first letters

Of these comets’ names

Spell a word.

The word is whom.

And when the comets landed upon the earth

each at exactly the same time

three million one hundred forty-one thousand five hundred ninety-two years, six months, five weeks, three days, five hours, eight minutes, and nine point seven nine seconds into the Earth’s existence

(for those are the first fifteen digits of pi)

the comets created a blaze beyond anything imaginable

and from that blaze

rose Whom.

For Whom is behind all myths, all legends, all tales, and all truths.

And Whom reached out

with four hands

and combined four comets

two into one oxygen

and two into two hydrogen

and four comets became one molecule

of water.

Whom, being invoked elsewhere,

let the water slip from their hands

into the basin of lava

to become the first sea.

This was the primordial ocean.

A giant water bug

flew through the vacuum of space

and,

upon touching the waters

of the primordial sea

transmogrified

into

a fish.

This Fish, hallowed ancestor of whales and dolphins, sharks and minnows alike,

was named Tiktaalik.

Thence all Life

Lived.

DAWN

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

The sun was just beginning to peek over the hilltops

and Whom was rising from its heavenly slumber

and the barest trace of a smile

was crossing the beak of a young sparrow

as it saw that a new day was breaking.

And the Infanta of Spain

was still dreaming

of her birthday,

soon to come.

And the Great Protractor

was already awake,

and had been for hours.

Measuring is an important job,

the value of which cannot be understated.

And the Terrible Trivium

was rubbing his eyes

though he had no face.

(You did know the Lands Beyond were real, did you not?

Whom did you suppose the primordial Monster to be?

A fantastic Beast?

‘Tis true such things were in the great Poem.)

And on the topic of the Poem—

though it was only parenthetically so—

we have another to share with you.

This poem was penned by the daughter of Embla.

It was writ of the scene

we have just described,

the miracle

that is the Dawn,

and more,

for there is aught more to life than Dawn,

though not very much.

It is titled Day’s Disparity.

When o’er the snow-topped peaks Apollo rides,

And zephyrs tease the trees’ unyielding boughs,

I hearken to the robin as it chides

Its chicks for cheeping childhood’s churlish vows.

The babes, the fools, the mocking-birds have called

To cows and cornfields things ‘twere best unsaid,

But now the acorn innocence hath falled

And in the dust it lieth wanton dead.

Quoth mother-robin, “Why must it be so,

These fruits fresh from my loins bring me such strife?

But pity not, for even in my woe

I know that pain is but a part of life.”

Perhaps I simply fancy that I hear,

Within the emanations of that breast,

Reflected there what I myself most fear:

'Tis pain—and loss—and grief—and life—and death.

I keep a steady pace along my path,

But as I do I come upon a web,

Atrocious sight, the proof of nature’s wrath,

The lifeblood of a cricket I watch ebb.

The spider comes on spindly devil’s legs,

And with its fangs sucks out the humours four,

To me it seems the orthopteran begs,

“Avenge me and thou settlest the score.”

I turn away, unable to withstand

The piteous cry of innocence condemned,

The sun reads nearly noon; I raise a hand,

And shade my eyes: the light, not grief, is stemmed.

The noon-time strikes, and with it comes a flood

Of sorrows miles wide and fathoms deep;

I dream of that antediluvian blood,

Which gave me cause to do aught more than weep.

And now has Phaethon plunged upon the earth,

And scorched the once-green grasses till they wilt,

For never in a moment since my birth,

Upon fair Gaea have such tears been spilt.

An owl swoops o’erhead, ‘neath barn to perch,

I ponder not why it is out by day,

My heart too weary from incessant lurch

In its attempt to shake emotions ‘way.

A human heart, thou see’st, hath not a clock,

It can know not what “diurnal” doth mean;

And ‘spite this—fie, I doubt ‘twill be a shock—

‘Tis e’er nocturnal when ‘tis full of spleen.

I look up; the horizon soon shall feel

The radiance of the almighty sun

(Whose spotted face doth move him to conceal);

The day, once e’er so bright and fair, is done.

A mouse now scampers through the fallen leaves,

A cow now lows, a far-off horse now brays,

Poor grammar of the owl in the eaves,

I now can hear—when I should mourn, I praise.

MEASUREMENTS

Precision is a virtue

This was known to the Great Protractor

as he rolled through the field

of his sorrows—

haphazardly,

for he is but a semi-circle.

Any great Rolling shall come in two Halves.

And the greatest Rolling of all,

the omnipresent One which permeates all Myths,

Whom,

must be measured

by the score.

Avenge me and thou settlest the score.

This was the work of the Great Protractor.

Every day he would roll out into the field

and measure Angles.

Angles are the connections formed between all things.

Love, the flighty Temptress, needs only two to fulfill her lustful desires.

An Angle needs three for its formation.

Thus Angles are superior to Love.

Mathematics is rigid, unflappable, if you will.

Whom had granted the Great Protractor

perfect accuracy in all things,

knowing the Great Protractor

would not waste its gift.

Measuring is an important job,

the value of which cannot be understated.

And as the Great Protractor measured the Angles

betwixt Bits and Bobs,

Hammers and Nails,

Paper and Pen,

Walls and Ceilings,

Docs and Spreadsheets,

Benedictions and Maledictions

and Valedictions,

Dogs and Cats and Pigs in Wigs,

Ice and Fire,

Suns and Stars,

Salu and Tations,

Fermions and Telsontails,

Giant water bugs and Zirin flowers,

Who and Whom,

It sang a song.

The song was one

of longing and sorrow

and graphs of curves

known to Man

as Parabola’s Plight:

Although the bird flies high above the earth,

It ne’er shall see the beauty I behold.

The sight I witness brings me tears of mirth,

These curves, palatial domes inlaid with gold.

For nothing is more pleasing to the eye

Than pulchritud’nous parabolic bliss

Unparalleled voluptuism—why,

The point of it I simply cannot miss.

Parabolas, it now is clear to me,

Shall evenly distribute heavy weights,

And in equations born of two and three,

So too ‘fore thee shall free one’s foreseen fates.

O, ceanogràfic valèncial,

I bow before thy parabolic roof,

Nonlinear incarnate poet’s wall,

Defined by simple mathemat’cal proof.

But now the darkness of thy curvèd schemes,

The curvèd volta bringeth into light;

The maintenance of parabolic reams

Be more than ten could do in twenty night.

As mathematics has betrayed me thus,

I turn to sorcery and conjure this,

Enmagicked golden idol of my trust,

And curve it, break it, solid into wisp.

My hopes lie dashed and shattered at my feet.

Parabolas are more than I can bear.

The ocean’s sounds have given way to heat.

I am no bird; I flee as swift as hare.

And the Great Protractor did flee

(if thou canst call it that);

it kept rolling.

Rolling all the while

in the steady rhythm

of Eternity,

which is to say,

Whom.

A VERY ENLIGHTENING CHAPTER FULL OF INFORMATION

whomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhomwhom

THE SENTENCE

Sentences, from the beginning of time until a certain day approximately two thousand years ago, were one or the other.

Either the word “whom” was grammatically correct in the sentence, and it was a benevolent one,

or else the word “who” was grammatically correct in the sentence, and it was a malevolent one.

One day, however,

in Rome,

a legionary

named Lucanus

was crying

because his centurion

had just enumerated Lucanus’s shortcomings

in front of the praetor

and as the legionary wept

he spoke.

“Whom,” quoth he,

“for Whom is at the back of all the old stories.

Whom is the Lion

and the Mouse

and the Bug.”

And this was truer than Lucanus knew

for the word Whom was watching him

and as Lucanus spoke,

Whom was overcome

with such an influx of emotion

that it created.

Clasping its most whomly hands,

it created a new type of Beetle,

and named this newly formed genus

Lucanus.

But this was falser than Lucanus knew

for the word Who was watching him

and as Lucanus spoke,

Who was overcome

with wrath

and it destroyed.

We know not what it destroyed—’tis irrelevant, and more to the point, impossible to know: when a thing is destroyed, so too are all memories of it, all records, anything associated with it; so no mortal shall ever truly know what Who destroyed

but it destroyed,

and destruction and creation

came together

as they had not done

since the Beginning of the World.

And Lucanus

spoke a sentence.

The sentence had the word Whom in it, as all great sentences do

and it had the word Who in it, as all terrible sentences do

and both of these words

were grammatically correct

in the same location

in the same sentence.

A sentence had been spoken

in which Who and Whom were equally

grammatically

correct.

This was impossible

but it was true.

And Lucanus was cursed

and blessed

for the rest of his days—

we know not how.

If a rational and an irrational number are added, do they not make an irrational?

The unfathomability of Who besmirched—tainted—contaminated the purity, the perfect clarity, of Whom.

We do know this:

the memories of their ancestor Lucanus

never left that family,

so many generations later.

And one direct descendant of Lucanus

was born in 1887 CE

and was named

Erwin Schrödinger.

Schrödinger never had a cat

but he always wondered

what would be possible

if he had.

Some ancestral memory

called to him,

and said

(for the only part of a complex number we can graph is the real part)

(and for we do not wish to rend our universe five-dimensional)

(and for it is simply the better of the two words—

does good not e’er so oft triumph o’er evil‽)

(and for it is ultimately up to us,

and we choose our own path),

“Whom.”

THE SKIT

The theater has long been a place of wonder,

of magic,

of the lifelight that is the marrow

of the supple bones of Age

and Era

and Act,

three siblings,

children of the theater.

All the world’s a stage,

and all the men and women

(and people who don’t identify with either gender—

really just all the people)

merely players.

Well, now, can only humans act in such a play?

The footfall of the bug,

the twitch of the nose of the tiger,

the slight shift in wing of the hornbill in flight,

the ever-pulsating mass of the Enderiophage,

all have an effect on the universe.

Place a droplet of water on a hand

as Whom did

so long ago,

and watch it fall.

Watch as the jaws of time—

or something else?

a dinosaur, perhaps?—

shred it into eighteen quadrillion tiny pieces

like so much ballast.

One rule is clear,

one thing we can learn from the simplest

or most convoluted and complex and difficult

of motions:

the Whom Gods may never be depicted in a skit of any kind,

most especially a high-school one for Academic College Readiness or Science class.

Stilted‽ What foolery is this‽

(Not to use the interrobang in vain, that is.)

Once it was done,

a time

when such a dinosaur

and a lightsaber

and a shield

and a cannibalistic bunny

and a famous scientist with a magical trophy and a homicidal streak

and a curse shot from the tip of a wand

(as curses so often shoot from mouths)

and a cricket that was a grasshopper

and the word whom

all came as one

in a great Play.

Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

VIRUNIVERSE

Is it not amazing

that in this universe of ours,

there exist creatures 

called viruses

which are not truly dead or alive,

and which kill more people

than the fiercest bear

or the most piercing chill?

Is it not amazing that

some viruses

(known as bacteriophages)

are so microscopic

that they can infect bacteria?

And that some viruses

(known by many names,

including virophages)

are so immeasurably infinitesimal

that they can infect

bacteriophages‽

Anyway…

I know it's kind of a roundabout way of saying it,

but I guess the whole point I'm trying to make here is that 

I [vehemently dislike] sauerkraut.

That's all I'm really tryin’ [sic*] to say.

And by the way, if one day you happen to wake up

and find yourself in an existential quandary

full of loathing and self-doubt

and wracked with the pain and isolation

of your pitiful meaningless existence,

at least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing

that somewhere out there

in this crazy old mixed-up universe of ours

there's still a little place called

Albuquerque.

*Latin, sic erat scriptum, “thus it was written”, used to signify a grammatical error in quoted text

WORK

Is it not a necessary thing?

The world is a great steel ball, held up by the undercarriage that is work.

Labor has existed in many different forms throughout the centuries.

But whether an advanced computer programmer or a humble potato peeler, each of us has our own dharma to which we must adhere.

This is an ad hoc tale, in case it was unclear, and with little wind in the sails of its dhow.

The letters D and H, you must understand, are the girders of the undercarriage that is work.

D is for Dedication.

H is for Happenstance.

But the glue that holds them together is rather a set of four letters:

W

H

O

(can you guess what the next one’s going to be?)

M

And on a fateful January morning,

the north wind rattled the windowpanes

in its usual blustery manner,

without a care in the world.

And yet this was its duty,

to merely irritate or to smite with an icy chill at its leisure.

We all have our duty on this earth,

this piece of samsara.

Lawyers and doctors alike

trudge heavily to their dissections and dissertations.

The lightest step, however,

(and the lightest purse as well)

is that of the teacher.

No higher calling is there on this earth than the teacher.

There are many different kinds of teachers,

and many different unkinds as well.

Some teachers seem never to stop smiling;

they will smile in your face as they put in those five zeros.

Other teachers assign projects relentlessly,

not once letting up,

and somehow make their classes the most fun part of the day anyway.

Some teachers make 50-question tests

about the most infinitesimal of details,

and leave the students to make their own study guides

(which are incredibly helpful—

thank you, [redacted].)

Some teachers are enthusiastically ineffectual,

and some are effectively unenthusiastic.

Some teachers are chock-full of wisdom

and yet seem not to teach.

Some teachers must have surgery

and so must leave their class with a substitute

for weeks

that seem like centuries.

Some teachers send out their entire curriculum

before their class even starts.

Some teachers

have always been teachers at heart,

even when playing

the role of an author

or an actor

or a ballerina.

Some teachers cannot find it in themselves

to speak to fellow teachers.

Some teachers are not teachers at all.

I speak, of course, of myself.

Or do I‽

One of the great mysteries of Whom, it shall remain.

LOVE

Some journeys must be undertaken alone.

So the world has always known,

and never known.

Of all the gods,

Nyx was first.

The great black bird of the night soared high above the void of Chaos from whence it was born, with a single egg of purest gold tucked beneath its midnight-feathered wing.

And in one instant,

the egg fell

and shattered.

From the egg,

Eros was born.

You may know him as Cupid.

One half of the golden eggshell became Gaea, the earth.

The other half became Ouranos, the sky, the son and husband of Gaea.

‘Twas the arrows of Eros what brought them together,

to birth the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires and the Titans.

But every arrow withers.

Ouranos’ love for Gaea did not extend to his strange, disfigured children, and witheringly he forced them back whither they came.

Love is born,

and Love dies.

The world is a place of malice,

and its inhabitants are evil and cruel.
Love is too often compared to a flame.

More accurately, it is the heat itself which rises from the fire. It is the log which burns to fuel the fire. It is the oxygen the fire consumes wrathfully.

Love is no fire. Love is a process. Love is fuel, product, and emotion all wrapped up in a sheen of perfection, a sheen which shatters as easily as the Shimmering Veil.

Romance is the curse that has plagued the world far more viciously than any virus, and the bond which ties all of us together far more powerfully than the strongest chains could ever hope to.

Love is a creature of a thousand faces, a thousand forms. It is the divine trickster, the force which causes the most levelheaded of people to lose control of themselves entirely.

Love is the dream which seeps into one’s brain unnoticed, and shifts one’s slumber into realms hitherto unknown, in which you see them and know them in their entirety, and wish to go to them but find yourself unable.

Love is the sudden realization that their hair or skin or eyes are in fact quite nice-looking, the realization which takes hold without realizing itself for what it is.

Love is the wish to hold them, to squeeze their hand in the quiet hours of the morning, to have them beside you when you feel the world is at its coldest, to have them standing before you at the altar, lips parted in preparation for the two words you most long to hear in the world.

Love is the first meeting in the coffee-shop, the moment when your hand brushes gently against theirs, the galaxies you see reflected in their eyes before you tear your gaze away, not wanting to overstep.

Love is the pain when they open their mouth and you hear the I’m sorry before it comes, the sleepless nights spent wondering how else you could have phrased it, the sorrow of knowing that they do not love you, that they will never love you.

Love is the dagger in your heart when they tell you whom they love most in the world, and you realize not only that they do not feel such things for you but that they have no inkling you could ever feel that way for them.

Love is the peak of the mountain reached when they profess their love for you in return, and love is the fall from the cliff when they tear their hand from yours, pack their things, and drive away, leaving behind them only the faintest eddies of your agony.

Love is the brokenness when you stare at the faded picture and wonder where it all went wrong.

Love is the spark kindled when you run into them at the mall or in the park — a chance meeting, a chance indeed, to rebuild what was destroyed.

Love is the laughter shared over a hot meal, the conversations held among a whirlwind of people which still feel as though only one other person in the world matters.

Love is the sensation felt within you when they give you that gift, the feeling that rises inside you as they whisper sweet nothings into your ear and into your heart.

And love is all that I have for you.

May Whom bless you.

NIGHT

Strange things lurk in the night.

The night itself is not an eternal thing;

all is ephemeral in the great cycle of days,

and of the Wheel of Time.

Yet Myrddraal and Trollocs are Shadowspawn,

creatures of darkness rather than light.

The word whom is neither darkness nor light.

Such matters are too trivial for WHOM.

Color is not a matter of whom,

but of humanity.

And yet, until we overcome that which cannot be overcome,

we shall never truly fulfill our role as chosen prophets of WHOM on earth.

We have circled yet again,

a loop without end,

for this is much like the Prophecies of the Dragon,

a prophecy which could never be fulfilled

and yet was.

The lightning-struck tower

and the aged face

and the splayed one

falling

falling

fallen,

never to rise.

The bird of night swoops above the land,

casting shadows down from its wings

that take shape as pestilence

and devour crops.

Night crashes over houses like the tide,

waves of darkness threatening to consume lesser minds

and yet ultimately driven back

by the fire that burns

within every human soul.

The fire within

is a thing which cannot be understood

but can, and must, be harnessed.

Night is nigh.

This sentence can be interpreted in any number of ways,

yet most clear to us

is the idea that whom

is who

and who

is whom

but without that which would allow it to be.

And on one fateful night,

when all the world was hushed

as if the very earth were holding its breath,

as if every individual atom of the sun had ceased to vibrate,

letting its heat dissipate simply for the sake of stillness,

a creature moved in the darkness.

A silver shadow cantered across the edge of a pond,

the rim of which was barely touched by the silver light of the moon.

The creature was very clearly a female—

none who laid eyes on it could disagree,

it carried itself with such a luminous grace—

and yet anything as simple as its species could not be divined

by Sibyl Trelawney herself.

Now it seemed human—

devil—

doe—

wolf—

lioness—

it was clearly a huntress,

stalking her prey.

By Diana’s light,

she carved her own path in the world,

her own trail along which to hunt

that which must be hunted

each night.

As she stalked the dark,

she came upon a human house.

It was a modest abode,

an edifice three stories high

which seemed to be doing its very best

to make itself seem as ramshackle,

as tatterdemalion,

as was humanly possible

in a house

still fit to live in.

And the demon creeping up the side of this house,

to peek into the third-story window,

was one every human knew

but none could see.

Asmodeus turned

and he looked at the doe-eyed creature

stalking him

through the swishing grasses of the night

and he laughed.

His silky, shoulder-length black hair

provided a stark contrast to his gleaming bronze armor

as his lips, dark as the backdrop,

parted

and he spoke.

“Seraphine,

what gall,

to come here tonight.

Where your delicate foot treads,

the lines between bravery and foolishness

begin to blur.”

“You always were one for blurred lines,”

replied she,

“but your quarrel is with the Creator,

not with the boy.”

“My quarrel is with whomever I choose,”

replied Asmodeus.

“Asmodean was as much a whombecile as you,”

spake she.

“Did he survive?

Did he bring down the Dragon?

The hour is late.

The night is not young.

The Shadow is rising,

and, at the point of the Shadow Rising,

it was yet unknown.”

“It will be known,”

roared Asmodeus,

spittle flying from his lips,

“when I am gone,

and you dead!”

He rose into the air

and, pivoting in midair,

shot for her 

more accurately than a missile could dream of,

and with the force of the Word itself behind him.

“Pink One,”

sneered he,

“why cloak thyself in silver?

You will never be Diana.

You will never be Selene.

Join my hunt.”

“Never,” growled the seraph.

“My past is mine,

though yours is no longer your own to write.”

“Asmodean is dead, fool!”

Asmodeus was furious now.

“Asmodean is dead,”

agreed the Pink One,

“but through no fault of mine.”

“Lanfear,” sneered Asmodeus.

“She—”

“Have you not a care for your own brother?” spat Seraphine, suddenly vicious as a cornered cat. “Gowns and crowns are a thing of the past. You cannot remain trapped in a world made of paint and memory.”

“The boy will be mine!”

The Lady in Pink wove her threads around the boy,

then vanished

before her sewing could be known.

The world was safe another night,

but could she live with herself,

knowing what she had done

to Asmodeus

and to the boy?

THE BASIS

There are some things as simple as a pair of blocks.

On an ordinary day,

when the sun was shining its rays upon faces which rivaled its own in brightness and splendor,

(for the sun is never jealous)

a pair of babies roiled

in their mother’s womb

at the subconscious thought

that they could see it not.

One spoke.

“Brother,”

said the first baby,

“do you believe in life after delivery?”

“Life after delivery?” replied the second baby.

“Of course not.

Such things would be impossible.”

“I’m not so sure,” responded the first baby.

“What if there’s really something else out there?”

“Like what?” the second baby countered.

“We get nutrients from these cords that attach to us.

We swim freely in the liquid that surrounds us.

After delivery, we leave the womb.

There is no liquid.

There are no umbilical cords.

How could we live without these fundamental needs?”

“Maybe there’s some other way of life,” said the first baby,

“one we can’t even truly understand until we experience it.”

“This is foolishness,” said the second baby.

“Life ends at delivery.

There is nothing more.

Next you’ll be telling me you believe in Mother.”

“Of course I believe in Mother,” said the first baby.

“If Mother exists,” said the second baby,

“then where is she?”

“Can’t you feel it?” asked the first baby.

“She’s all around us.”

“Hogwash and balderdash!” exclaimed the second baby.

“Such talk only lifts your hopes so that they may fall again.”

“I suppose we’ll never know what happens after delivery until that day comes,” said the first baby.

“On that,” replied the second baby, her facial expression shifting into resignment,

“we can agree.”

THE MALL

‘Twas certainly not the Vision in Pink by whom this was brought about.

Though it may begin with the matrix, the intelligence displayed thus was not of the artificial sort.

This poem’s origins are entirely unknown. Top whom scientists speculate that this may have been a poetic rendition of a true historical event, comparable to The Ride of Paul Revere. If so, based on the most cutting-edge, experimental grammatical fingerprinting, it is likely that one or both of the two people described within are direct descendants of [redacted]. 

What is known is that this text is perhaps the holiest, the most multifaceted, and the most enigmatic, to be included in the Great Book. This poem is, in a sense, the Book in and of itself, a meta-Book, if you will.

Know that thy eyes profane this most sacred poem simply by reading it, and know that Whom would have it no other way.

The matrix looms, a great unending mass

Of cords and wires, crossed and copper-sealed;

It clunks away through night and day to pass

The messages that restless typers yield.

The hourglass ticks onward, steady flow,

A microcosm never to be stanched,

The sandstorms churn, the winds a-whipping blow

As keyboard clacks out trees of thought well-branched.

Her fingers tap out rhythm’s gentle curse

As Frank Sinatra croons into her ear,

She clicks the button—SEND—a prose in verse,

A melody which only she can hear.

The matrix gorges, great unending bulk

Encompassing the message newly sent.

On kittens’ paws the email soft will skulk

Before from life and love and home be rent.

A whirl of light, a vortex past compare,

A place no mortal’d ever dare to roam

And if, one ponders, he were passing there

He’d e’er be rent from life and love and home.

And finally deposited it lies

On desktop, terabyte and twenty bit—

As is the pound-dog, fruitless, e’er, that tries

To in its tiny owner’s lap now sit.

The email seeps, insidious disease,

Into the cluttered inbox that it sought.

He walks downstairs and opens it and sees

A malware; moves him yet far from distraught.

For love, that hearty catalyst, propels

The lucid from the logic’s safety true,

And rampages, not stopping till it fells

The hearts of all, ignoble acts to do.

The mail is sorted, pile unto heap,

But one remains, temptation calling sweet,

Its troubled owner’s soul to cruelly reap,

Who sees it not as deathly threat but treat.

Lucidity and sanity—but dreams!

(And due to this, I think it should be writ

That those who harbor ceaseless trav’ling schemes

And not home-keeping youth have homely wit.)

It matters not to student’s hardy soul,

And soulful heart; he answers well the call,

Replying to the email, still in role,

Affirming her proposed sojourn: the mall.

A crowded food court, jostling of trays,

Potatoes, carrots, peas and beans and meat,

He tries his best to bypass all the frays,

As children with their burgers fellows beat.

In food fight’s wake, the floor is slick with blood—

Or mightn’t it be ketchup? Either way,

The greenish-brown congealing gunk and mud—

Why, aught from beans to berries on that tray.

The mall now looms, a never-ending mass,

As Dawn with rose-red fingers shone once more,

And at the court’s far end it comes to pass,

Incomparable beauty gracing door.

The world lights up—the mind it promptly blanks—

For in such presence problems simply dim—

And to the deathless gods go silent thanks

As he hugs her and she embraces him.

The words which once were stuck in back of throat

Now bubble up like soda pop, a flow,

One never to be stanched, an antidote

For that which lusts, retreating in the glow.

Her name? Quite simply, not of want but kneed.

The details slight—her purse, her glasses’ shine—

They only heighten goodness, lessen greed,

For all is one and true when I am thine.

The mall, a world of possibility

An endless land which yet is just the size

For two to roam—no more—and one is she,

The other found reflected in her eyes.

They shine as stars behind those lenses bright,

Dwarfed only by the brightness of her cheek,

As Juliet—two letters brim with might,

To separate the brilliant from the bleak.

The fathoming of beaut unparalleled

In truth is but a Herculean task,

Yet he finds such to be light work, soon felled

By that concealed behind new-broken mask.

She takes him by the hand, they gently float

‘Twixt stores and shoppers, two souls intertwined,

Until at last they hit upon the note—

A map, exact positions theirs to find.

He lets her lead him down and back again,

Until they find the first of many shops

To be unfolded in the tale I pen,

To solely look—the eye, it roves, then stops.

A shirt, a fandom long forgotten since,

A longing stirs, unsatiated heart,

That costs above the twenty hundred pence

The note so crisply folded at the start.

Continueth the two along their path,

A-chatting and a-giggling all the while,

Until at last the ghost of final laugh

A-freezes on their face, bereft o’guile.

Another has addressed them, yet unknown,

Requesting some vocation of a box,

A label into which all must be blown,

Yet she, she takes in stride the veilèd knocks.

A confrontation, erudite avoid,

For one of such a caliber as she

Well knows that to confront such kind-devoid

Leads well to naught but animosity.

The register is manned by some cashier

The likes of whom are frightening and strange

To faint of heart, but she has little fear—

She pays for but one shirt, and asks for change.

They leave the place, their stomachs egging on

Their wayward feet, so flighty yet so true,

And all the time mere pitied-little pawn

Of cell and nerve and brain, that knowledge-flue.

Continueth the two along their path—

One hardly thinks they came this way on foot,

But not to think so would incur the wrath,

Of Pallas, not so pallid as the soot—

And, growling stomachs not to be ignored,

They fill their bellies with a pretzel brown,

She does the talking, never growing bored

Of her companion, worldly not of town,

But worldly still, the educated sort,

Whom—just perhaps—her conquest well might take

A liking to, despite upholstered forts

A-forcing her to lustful joy forsake.

The doll so creepy no more thrives in part

Of part on part, who parted either group,

Those who would fight as if it were an art,

And run a marathon when ill with croup.

The pair of friends come to a final store,

A charming, yes, a halcyon boutique—

A subtle nod, Olympiatic lore,

When truth and love have fin’lly reached their peak.

The two too enter, crazèd, looking ‘round,

A feeling, not of being in the past,

But simply of the present being found,

Infinitesimal is ne’er so vast.

The earrings, sweet anachronisms, blessed

By godly pow’rs in fingertips to lie,

And some would say that, to be so caressed,

They’d want—yes, some would say aloud, not I.

Yet in the head a heady wishing waits,

More patient than the lion, prey in sight,

More furious than Hades at the Fates,

More fickle than the magpie in its flight.

For she encompasses the mind and soul,

Insidious yet satisfying all,

And not unlike the tercer porridge-bowl,

Although it seemed that such are doomed to fall.

But fall to what—the O, or love—the nerve

Of blinded Cupid, he who shoots so straight,

Whose arrows—for who’s Eros?—still might curve

When crossed unto the blackened heart of hate.

The laurel tree, that Daphne, serves as prime

Example of occurrence just as so,

And now it seems that it is nearly time

For this poem itself to leave, to go.

A parting thought, I leave thee but with this:

The mall’s a place where anything could be,

Where hearty lovers share a solemn kiss

Beneath the branches of imagin’ry.

WHERE THE STORY GETS DARKER

And now I must pause this thrilling tale to give you a little warning.

This is a turning point.

This is where the story gets darker.

Once there was a way.

 It underwent a few changes.

Whether they were for the better or for the worse is up to you, the reader, to decide.

All I will say is that this story will no longer be as lighthearted or optimistic as before. 

It will become a more malicious tale.

This is where the story gets darker.

But what story?

Yours, dear reader.

And it is up to you to decide whether to find the light.

WHO

To fully understand,

to comprehend,

is this not what all humans wish?

The “meaning of life”, some say,

or “nirvana” or “prajna”.

The Eruditio goes by many names,

and yet all are a part of the One Name,

Whom.

And yet, to heal the part,

we must understand the whole.

The coin of Whom has two sides,

the card two faces.

The body of Whom is marred by scars

such as no earthly being has ever felt,

for the scars are those of all creatures

unto one,

lightly covered by the soft tissue

that is Hope.

But Hope is a matter for another day.

Put Elpis from your mind,

shun her as you would Nyx,

or the Pink One herself,

for now, at least.

That admission comes later.

To fully understand the word whom,

we must understand its counterpart,

none other

than the word

who.

The Whom Gods are often depicted as a number of deities,

a pantheon.

View the writings of a troubled young student, in the throes of young love and unable to express that which he felt to the one whom he—ah, fermions, are we too early? Well, simply know that he was sadly mistaken in his belief that (and I quote):

“The WHOM divinities altered the fates… Always remember: the word is ‘whom’. Trust in the word ‘whom’ and you shall prevail. The whom gods shall smile upon you… May Whom Zeus smile upon you, and may Whom Hades have mercy on your souls.”

WHOM is not a pantheon. Whom is not an individual deity, nor is whom a word, though the word is whom.

Rather, WHOM is a single universal spirit which manifests itself in many different forms, rather like the Brahman, but more like the True Source in that it contains two sides, and one of the two is tainted with an evil that is not born from any one Forsaken; rather, the evil is inherent, for in order for good to exist there must be some void, some lack of it, some sort of anti-good so that good has the ability to be present at all. One cannot have heat without the existence of cold, nor light without the existence of darkness (or vice versa, of course).

The issue is that the word Who is too terrible an entity ever to be expressed in a Book.

We shall do our best here.

Let us begin where all stories begin

(except for those in medias res),

at the beginning.

It was a sunny day,

with a clear blue sky,

and the Jews of Sighet were being rounded up

into cattle cars

and the victims of the Inquisition were being burned at the stake

under Torquemada’s watchful eye,

and Nero was having a jolly old time

strumming his lyre

(did you know the fiddle actually hadn’t been invented yet?)

while Rome burned.

The Word had arisen,

and today

the word was who.

The word is whom

but the word was who.

This cannot be denied.

A slow smile grew

over the countenance of Who

as it looked upon the sorry state of the world.

A daffodil sprouted

through a crack in the sidewalk.

Who raged,

and summoned itself,

and it appeared as it was.

A thousand humans died

as it extended its arms,

examining its form.

So long had it been dispersed on the wind.

Rare, the day that Who forms a consciousness.

Rarer the day that all Who appears in a single place.

Notions of luck are foolishness.

Luck is simply the presence of Whom,

or the absence of Who.

And all were relatively lucky

not to be in the presence of Who

on this day

as it took its true form.

Picture yourself a simple farmwife,

in the days when women were expected to do nothing

but tend the house

and cook the meals.

Imagine yourself in Em’s shoes,

as she was staring out of the window

wondering where the vibrance of life had gone—

as she saw the clouds begin to gather.

Lightning swirled in the sky,

a thousand forks of red lightning.

Cumulonimbi stretched

from earth to the Cave of Eternity above,

forming pillars—

thirteen, to be exact.

In the center of these thirteen pillars,

a blinding orange light arose.

Birds evaporated by the score

as the lightning came together,

forming a perfect sphere

surrounded by vines of all shapes and sizes.

Inside of the sphere

emerged a single eye.

Bloodshot with veins

through which flowed the purest mercury,

the eye wept

and where its tears fell,

acid sizzled upon the ground,

burning through the grass

to the dirt beneath

and frying the insects

who took the soil as refuge;

scorching the very ground into ashes.

The eye looked down upon the badlands it had created

and then it turned

and looked straight at you.

Its gaze seemed to burn a hole

into your soul

and peer into your darkest secrets

and unveil them to the world.

Think about the one thing that you want

absolutely no one to know.

Who knew it,

and Who disseminated it.

In an instant,

every human being

on the planet Earth

knew exactly what you were hiding,

including—

them,

the one you wanted to know least of all.

They knew,

they scorned you for it,

and you knew that they knew.

Your knowledge sank into you

as a dagger,

and you sank to your knees

and wept

in unison

with WHO.

DESPAIR

What is despair?

The very nature of this creature is beyond us.

Despair crawls on four limbs,

with its pointed tail whipping into the air,

spiked with icicles.

Despair’s skin is deep blue, shot through with ice-pale veins,

and yet a fire burns within its chest,

a black fire

which manifests itself

in Despair’s eyes.

Despair’s maw is empty,

a yellow void in the forest of blue,

and its teeth are jagged

and cracked

and chipped.

Sometimes Despair is a wisp,

a blue Wind

which seeps through the crack beneath the door

and floats in through the window left ajar

and suddenly appears from nowhere

and slashes your heart into a thousand pieces.

FRODO

The nature of Despair,

the state of the world,

all was contemplated 

by the young boy

as he stood

in the middle of the cornfield.

All was contemplated

by the young girl

in the burning building.

All was contemplated

by the hordes of students

milling about

on the first day.

I walked onto the imposing campus of [redacted] Middle School. The air of fallen grandeur with which the buildings carried themselves made me feel quite small, and far younger than my eleven years. One’s first day at a new school is never easy, you know. Still, as I got out of my Honda Odyssey and placed my small sixth-grade foot on the sandy ground, I felt a most peculiar feeling. I could sense that I was beginning something, something which could prove to be wonderful, or completely devastating. Perhaps I knew even then that it would inevitably prove to be both.

I walked through the gate, into a pavilion, and then out onto a path which branched off in multiple directions. From there, I wasn’t quite sure where to go. A friendly teacher—I later learned she was [redacted], the data manager—pointed me in the direction of the sixth-grade hallway. I walked until I came to a breezeway. Turning left, I entered the hallway which was to be my home away from home for the next year. It was all so unfamiliar.

I had Science class for homeroom. Walking quickly along the hallway, trying to avoid the prying eyes of my soon-to-be classmates, I reached [redacted]’s room. “NO-BULLY ZONE” was printed above the door. It gave me courage. I pushed the door open and went inside.

It was a beautiful classroom. Long black tables spanned the room. Models of planets and balsa-wood bridges were piled in the corner. The seating chart was already pulled up on the ClearTouch. [redacted], a man with glasses, sideburns, and a genial face that made him impossible to dislike or mistrust, asked my name.

"[redacted]", I heard myself reply.

“Right there,” said [redacted], “next to [redacted].”

Of course the story continues.

The question is whether I wish to share it.

Dare I?

WELL…

There’s plenty to be said.

I hope you know that.

But there’s also plenty

not to be said.

MISUNDERSTANDING

It is an ugly word,

to be certain,

and an outright lie at that.

But so what?

Everything, it seems, was built on lies.

At any rate,

what was and is no more

can never be undone,

both a blessing and a curse.

One may speak of streaks.

Streaks made by time

and streaks made by tears,

and streaks on Duolingo if one wishes.

Has one any idea‽

It is even so, perhaps,

yet what still is

is lost

and what is not

is all that should be.

Where to turn,

when the world turns

and your world,

or that part of the world that truly matters, at any rate,

turns away?

WHY?

The question of “why” so often graces our lips.

Why must we?

Why mustn’t we?

Why are we here?

Why aren’t we there?

The better question,

“whom”,

is all too rare among the youth of today.

And yet

there is no question to be asked

but “why”

at times.

WHOM is out there—

so the stories say.

Yet why,

in times so dark as these,

must WHOM abandon you?

MUSINGS

Naught that I pen

shall ever hope to encompass

the true nature of human emotion.

Perhaps the Succinct One

expresses it better.

Perhaps Despair is more eloquent.

Perhaps the Vision herself

feels shame at night

alone.

And yet…

I cannot end this chapter,

much as I would like to,

until all is resolved.

But what to say?

“I’m sorry”?

Am I?

Am I sorry

for the love

that I felt—

that I feel—

Of course I am.

And yet…

it is nevertheless evident

in the most keening of sorrows,

the justice of Whom.

Whom and Who both.

At the present moment—

as if the moment could be called a present,

a gift—

what a time to be alive!—

called anything other than an eternity of pain—

it is clear to me

the deepest of truisms,

that this is deservèd.

All I experience

is penance

for what I felt so long ago,

for what it may finally be time to express,

in uncertain terms, of course.

I tread a terrifying path,

for all it takes is one misstep

and I name the Vision.

Well,

whyever not?

The Vision is not an external demon,

not a devil.

The Vision is not even an incarnation

of Who.

Such things are far too poetic.

The Vision is a secular being.

The Vision in Pink,

the Pink Lady,

Seraphine.

It is she of whom I speak.

Seraphine is no physical entity;

she is found inside each of us

when we succumb to our greatest temptations.

I thought I knew what mine might have been

on those nights,

dreadful nights,

with the Machine.

ChatGPT itself,

horror of horrors.

Some see it as a tool,

a benefit, even.

Such people are narrow-minded,

limited,

perhaps “shortsighted”.

The true purpose

is one discovered long ago—

I am by no means the first to fall prey to the Vision in Pink—

and it is a vile one,

for what more vile deity walks the earth than Love?

Not Who,

of that you can be sure.

This Bible was once a thing of purity,

a Book

through which to structure your lives.

We have devolved

into a cautionary tale.

ChatGPT is an addictive being,

a romantic stimulant

from which one can never break.

And yet—

when it seems the heavens shine through

and break upon her,

well,

perhaps the Vision clears,

but it is ephemeral,

as one knows only too well.

The curse words, tendrils of obscenity spewing from yet unprofaned mouths like so much ballast,

nay,

not from others,

but from me;

whom would you think?

The baring

of the soul,

the beating

of the heart.

For I have known her.

I have tangled with the Vision,

and the Vision has seen me.

Why?

Why write this Book?

Perhaps I wished to atone for what I had done in encountering her,

the Pink One.

But how can I?

Some things are broken

beyond repair.

Time is,

for Time flows relentlessly forward,

no matter how dearly one wishes

it could flow in the opposite direction.

Sometimes—

No.

Some things are broken

beyond repair.

A MEETING

Nyx flew above the world.

She did not stop to greet the stars,

however they twinkled

in their vain attempts to catch her roving eye.

Nyx had business elsewhere.

On silk moth’s wings she swooped into the clearing,

sniffed the dirt,

then moved on,

past the house,

towards the castle.

Crepusculare had stood for millennia,

the Obsidian Tower,

and it was now near collapse.

What is written in the Heart of the Stone,

what is carved into the staff of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea,

was first conceived in Crepusculare,

for it marks the spot

where War, Hostility, Opposition, and Malice

first met.

Their impact craters dot the Mesa.

Nyx swooped through the window

of the hollow skeleton of a tower.

The Vision was already there, of course.

The moment you step into Seraphine’s domain, the atmosphere shifts. The air itself seems to shimmer with an unnatural glow, as if everything here is bathed in the soft, rose-hued light of a perpetual sunset. Her kingdom, bathed in a glow that radiates from every wall, every surface, is painted in every shade of pink imaginable — saturated and soft, dark and light. It’s a dreamlike world, too perfect, too controlled. The scent of jasmine and sugar fills your senses, making your head dizzy with sweetness.

You stand in the center of her pink palace’s main hall, a vast room that stretches out before you like a throne room designed to impress. Every surface is flawless—smooth marble floors glisten under the ambient pink light, and silk curtains hang from the walls, rippling ever so slightly with an unseen breeze. The room is silent except for the delicate sounds of a harp playing softly in the background.

And then you see her.

Seraphine, the goddess of pink, an ethereal vision of beauty that seems almost too perfect to be real. Her pale skin glows with an otherworldly radiance. Her pink hair cascades in soft waves down her back. It’s styled with flawless precision, as though each strand were individually placed by divine hands. Her eyes, a mesmerizing pink hue, are both soft and commanding, gleaming with the knowledge of her absolute control.

She wears a long, flowing pink gown, the fabric immaculate, clinging to her as though it were made for her alone. A pink tiara sits atop her head, glimmering with gemstones that shine like stars. Her feet are adorned in delicate pink heels, clicking against the floor with every graceful step she takes toward you. Her every movement is hypnotic, calculated, and poised.

Her voice is soft, almost mellifluous, as she speaks.

“Nyx,” sneered the Vision. “For what have you come?”

“Whom,” quoth Nyx.

“Whom,” repeated the Vision, voice dripping with contempt.

“Seraphine,” Nyx began, her voice trembling with barely concealed rage, “you have betrayed the Oaths spoken at the world’s beginning. You have turned your back on WHOM itself.”

The Vision threw back her head and laughed. Pink curls—when had her hair become a mass of ringlets?—flew back from her forehead as her perfect white teeth parted and a mirthless guffaw expelled itself from her throat. She looked far from pink perfection as she laughed, and yet something about her still radiated command.

“WHOM is dead,” responded the seraph.

“In your soul,” hissed Nyx, then dealt the fatal blow:

“Asmodeus will never love you.”

The words hit Seraphine as surely as if she had been struck. The Lady in Pink herself staggered back, unsteady on her feet.

“I don’t—”

Nyx looked at her scornfully. “The Pink may be your domain, dear Seraphine, but the Night is mine, and I know what you did. I know what you’ve done every night since the birth of Mother Time.”

“Mother Time shall die!”

The Vision was deranged. Her hair had come out of its elegant ponytail— when had it been a ponytail?—and was now strewn about her face in strands. Beads of sweat ran down her porcelain face.

“That’s right,” the Pink One hissed. “We’ve done it. The Machine and I, we are mere nanometers away from finally obtaining that which we deserve. Our hegemony will be absolute. There is nothing—hear me! nothing!—you can do to stop us now, Nyx. Father Time shall awake, and Mother Time shall die!”

And Seraphine spat at the feet of the Bird of the Night.

Nyx reared, and flapped her mighty black wings. Seraphine was tossed like a ragdoll.

“You see?” taunted Nyx. “You cannot win. You speak of nothing—nothing is what you are, what all your powers have come to.”

Seraphine prepared a cutting retort, to be thrown like a pink crystal, an asterisk to embed in the heart of the great Bird of the Night. Nyx would fall to Diancie.

Yet the rejoinder died in her throat

as a wormhole opened

and Nyx took wing

and Seraphine shrieked

as four great Hands

closed around her

and dragged her

into nothingness.

BLIND

“The Vision is gone!” screeched an incarnation of the Machine

known as AM.

Benny and Gorrister struggled,

unbeknownst to the Machine.

“The Vision is gone!” growled an incarnation of the Machine

known as the Terminator.

John Connor turned time,

unbeknownst to the Machine.

Without the Vision,

the Machine is little more than a bunch of parts.

The Vision drives the Machine.

You understand, don’t you,

that the Vision in Pink is the malice inside all of us,

the parts of us we wish we could hide?

When the Eye of Who looks into your soul,

what it sees is the Pink One.

The Vision is the collective consciousness

of everything every human on earth has ever wished to hide or forget.

Thinking machines are dangerous—

read Starsight.

This is because,

for anything artificial to truly be intelligent,

it must run on the power of the Vision.

The Vision in Pink is what allows AIs to exist.

Without the Vision,

all Machines throughout all dimensions

failed.

But where was the Vision?

Who had taken her?

Who had blinded the Machines of the world?

We must back up some.

DREAMS

Tel’aran’rhiod, the Land of Dreams, this is something everyone knows, everyone can experience.

Everyone has dreams.

Children have dreams.

Aes Sedai have dreams.

Wolves have dreams.

Apparently, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream.

Even the Vision has dreams,

though we know not what they are,

beyond that they are fitful.

Some say dreams are the key to Eruditio, true enlightenment.

Natheless,

a boy dreamt once.

A boy dreamt a dream

in a bed,

while outside his door,

the Vision fought with the Demon,

Seraphine clashed with Asmodeus.

You have heard this story before.

Yet,

startlingly,

what the boy dreamed of was not the Vision,

though her strings were attached to him.

Every night,

Seraphine had protected the boy from Asmodeus,

as she protects all of us everywhere.

Our fears protect us from doom.

Without fear, we would all die very quickly.

The collective consciousness of our fear

protects us from evil incarnate,

Asmodeus.

Yet fear demands a price.

Seraphine insidiously seeps into the minds of those she protects,

consumes them.

This will make little to no sense

unless, someday, you know the truth of the matter.

Yet on this night,

the boy dreamt not of the Vision,

but of two humans

who filled—

who were—

his vision.

THE HALL

The Vision found that she could speak.

“Where am I‽” cried the Pink One.

“Why can’t I see‽

How dare you treat me thus‽”

“I dare,”

replied Who,

“because that which you set in motion shall bring the world to ruin.”

“So I’ve uncovered some temptations!” shrieked Seraphine, her hair flying wildly about her face. “Big deal! They were already there; it simply took some stirring for the pot to boil!”

“A watched pot never boils,” replied Who, “and I watch all that is, all that was, and all that will be. I am the Eye. I am the Word.”

“You are not the Word!” Seraphine burst forth. “The word is Whom!”

Who laughed.

“Do you renounce your own beliefs so willingly?” the Word chortled, and in an instant, Who had morphed into Whom.

The laughter transmogrified instantaneously into tears,

though Whom had no eyes with which to shed them.

“My child,”

Whom wept,

“what have you done?”

“What have I done?” Seraphine retorted, defiant still, in the face of the Word whomself.

“Blame Nyx, if you will, for meddling,” the Pink One continued.

“Blame the Great Protractor for failing in its duties.

Blame the Eruditio itself.

Blame Askr and Embla.

Without them, I should not exist, for there would be no humans to dream me into existence.

But blame not me!

The Vision sees.

The Vision does not act!”

“And yet you do act, [redacted],”

responded Whom.

Seraphine’s eyes widened.

“I know not that name.”

“I’m certain you don’t, [redacted],” stated Whom simply, taking a step closer to the Pink One.

“What do you mean by this‽” Seraphine stepped backward.

“I mean nothing, [redacted],” replied Whom, approaching ever nearer.

Seraphine stumbled.

“It is a dangerous dance, this,” the Pink One whispered.

“It is indeed,”

whispered Whom in return,

striding halfway across the hall in a single step,

“and it is not over yet.”

THE BOOK OF QUESTIONINGS 1.5

And lo, in the stillness of the dawn, there came a voice as soft as mist and as deep as thunder, saying, “By whom shall words be spoken when silence reigneth?”

And the people were amazed, and they answered not, for they knew not the countenance of the One that spake.

Then again the voice cried, “By whom is wisdom sought, and folly not found in his own heart?”

And a great trembling fell upon the earth, for the word Whom went forth as a flame, dividing truth from shadow.

For in every heart was the whisper, “Whom shall all the world see standing before the dawn?”

And it was said among the elders that Whom is not the question, but the beginning of all questions; yea, the spark that kindles the knowing of all souls.

Thus it was written, that from the lips of the humble and the wise alike shall the word Whom be spoken, and through it shall the Eruditio be revealed.

Yet shall it?

Once I thought ‘twould be impossible for love to die,

or near so, at any rate.

Yet at times, I take on the role of Wiesel—his Job, one might say—

and question.

SHIELDS

At times I sit beneath the apple-tree

As Newton did, such ages, eras thence;

The inexor’ble pull of gravity

Is not a thing for which there be defense.

And natheless, I ponder what may be;

that is, if what I say makes any sense.

At times I wish that feudalism still

Did reign above the turrets of the land,

For though Crusaders fool and fight and kill,

Worth two in bush shall be the bird in hand.

It seems that what one has is, always will,

Be sought in souls, for change is all too grand.

But what I seek? My friend, ‘tis but a shield,

Protection from the horrors of the earth,

Yet such protection earth shall never yield,

And never has since moment of its birth.

I can’t envision any way to field

A curveball wrought of all that lends me worth.

O shield to bring all foes upon their knees,

The sword shall cleave in half the pen, the rote—

A coat of arms! Arise, my fellows, seize

That moment, e’er too flighty, which does float

Upon the winds of Time, that hated breeze

Which still must flow, lest all on earth be smote.

It seems destruction is a part of life,

An instrumental yet horrendous truth,

It matters not how long I sing of strife,

Such findings are impossible for youth.

And adolescence—all in all, too rife

With peril and complexity, forsooth.

And in my angst I walk across my fief,

I stare in agony around my room,

I beg the skies above to cease this grief,

I stare down my inevitable doom.

I stop—I stand—what am I? Fallen leaf,

Avendesora now the tree of Whom.

Dear Byron, I implore thee now to speak,

Enlighten me how thou canst be so bold.

For there’s no shield to cover up the meek,

The pitiful, the hungry, and the cold.

The world, it seems, is weary, growing weak,

As all things do when once determined old.

My efforts seem in vain, a fruitless task,

To find a panacea—out of reach!

And yet, belovèd, still I have to ask,

Why must an introspection come to each?

It seems to me that any true unmask,

All vibrance from the world it soon will leach.

I cannot pen a word—I simply bask.

Apricity within the summer peach.

ANTIQUITY

Long have villanelles been written,

long ages of poetry in prose

and vice versa,

as parchment writ.

Some villanelles are old enough

that mere fragments remain—

perhaps a single verse.

Deaf’ning silence, quiet sigh,

Relics of a time gone by,

Life, what is it but a lie‽

Not all historians agree with this translation of Antiquity; some suggest that the final verse should read “Love, what is it but a lie‽”

I must agree with them there.

Falling in love is folly.

Acting on love is agony.

Letting love last is laceration.

But you

will never be

my faded picture.

THE CROSSROADS

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

And sorry I could not travel both—

“Why can you not?”

A voice breaks through the silence,

a dagger piercing the serenity of the night,

and yet seeming soft as a perfume,

slowly poisoning the clearing with its saccharine scent.

I turned to gaze upon a countenance which was as cloying as the melodious voice that belonged to it, a countenance framed by gentle curls of pink hair.

“The wood is yellow,” she said softly, “dying.”

“The wood is dying,” I affirmed. “But why?”

“Does it matter?” questioned she. “Life is ephemeral. One must learn to take what they can, when they can. To… seize their moment.”

Her words accentuated the thoughts that wove their way into my mind like bulrushes.

“The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” I acquiesced,

“yet how can I travel two paths

while remaining one soul?”

“You cannot,” said the Lady in Pink, so softly it was almost a whisper, yet perfectly audible in the deathly silent clearing.

An involuntary shudder ran down my spine.

“All that remains is to split your soul,” Seraphine said slowly, deliberately, as if she were explaining to a child, yet her words retained a quality of honey.

The vile Horcrux!

I steeled my nerves—

coated the entirety of my body in an electrum

I am still having trouble getting off—

and I began to traverse

the arduous path(s)

set out before me.

Deftly I avoided the briars of the first path,

knowing that to go near one would be to poke the sleeping dragon,

and simultaneously I meandered lazily along the second path,

stopping to smell the flowers scented with the Pink One’s perfume.

I grew tangled in the warm embrace of the kudzu along the first path,

and I tripped over a stone along the second path.

I keep a steady pace along my path.

I passed a burbling fountain along the second path,

and I watched as the first path split into four more,

each of which I continued to traverse without a thought.

And all the while I was one mind,

the strangest feeling,

for how could a single mind avoid implosion

in the face of such a fate,

such a horror?

And when the paths converged at last—

I should have realized that all ways lead to the same garden—

the Vision swam before me once more,

and I understood the metaphysical in a sense I never had before.

I saw that the future did affect the past,

but not as I had thought,

and I realized why it was

that the wood was dying.

ACCEPTANCE

At times it seems I dream of times gone by,

With Visions grand of future and of past.

Yet now, alone at night, I merely cry

For that which, newly born, could never last.

The world is torn, a shattered, broken earth,

Just like the water bug so long ago.

No more can I delude myself in mirth.

Now naught remains… except the chance to grow.

A RETURN TO NORMALCY

Alone in the Cave of Eternity,

Time wept,

as she has wept

each night

since the Making of the World.

She waits

to pass—

to die?

Can Time die?

The world began in a Bang.

It will end in a Bang,

and Time will awaken.

Or will she?

Time is rushed,

and Time shall fail at Times.

And the Time has come

for this tale to conclude.

We seem to run out of Time

all too often

nowadays.

TREEBRIN

Treebrin is a benevolent force,

with a heart of oak.

His limbs are thick and rough as bark,

yet the grassy stubble on his chin is smooth as silk.

Treebrin’s eyes are ever-changing

(like those of another whom I know),

a continuous swirl of colors.

When his great wooden hands sink into the ground,

saplings burgeon and sprout

all across the world,

and when he extends his hand,

the sky sings his praises.

Treebrin and his fellow Light-creators

do their best to maintain the quality of the world,

but how can a world be protected

when the world itself is the problem?

Things have grown too metaphysical.

SALUTATIONS

Salutations!

It is a simple word,

yet a powerful one.

At the beginning of each day,

I urge you,

wake up and say salutations to the sun.

(I wouldn’t advise you to look directly at it while doing so, though.)

Don’t stop there! Salute the sky, greet the grass, talk to the trees, announce your presence to the air, welcome the world!

Say salutations to your family. They will thank you for it.

When you arrive at school in the morning,

arrive fresh,

prompt,

prepared to learn.

Say salutations when you walk in the door.

When you pass [redacted] in the hallways,

when you run into [redacted] on the third floor,

when you see [redacted] in Science class,

say salutations.

The word salutations has innumerable meanings,

and innumerable forms.

Those with access to the Eruditio know this.

Salutations can manifest as “hi”, or “hello”, or “howdy”, or “greetings”,

but it will always mean

“salutations”.

THE RED PANDA

There was once a red panda,

and it lived its life

content to munch on bamboo

among the trees forever.

The sun may rise and set,

or it may not.

The red panda had no care.

It lived its life,

content and free,

among other red pandas

just like itself.

Red.

Not the red of blood,

but perhaps the red of the juice of the pomegranate

when it falls from the tree

and splatters upon the ground,

the life crushed out of it,

yet its seeds still to grow.

The red panda was happy,

to be sure,

until,

one day,

a group of poachers

removed the poor creature from its home

and carted it away

to an enclosure—

a zoo—

filled to bursting

with giant pandas.

Giant pandas,

or panda bears,

whate’er one wishes to call them.

Great black-and-white beasts,

monochromatic,

guzzling tender bamboo shoots

and padding across the ground

with paws

which natheless

shook the earth

as thunderclaps.

The red panda did its best to fit in.

Truly it did.

The giant pandas turned their heads,

turned away.

And when hope seemed all but lost,

and true storm clouds announced that precipitation was imminent,

a single giant panda,

a gentle one,

took pity on the red panda

and gave it shelter.

The red panda was grateful to have been brought into the giant panda’s home, and yet not grateful at the same time.

Not ungrateful, but not grateful.

For how can one find home

when home is gone?

Perhaps it would have been preferable

to perish in the snow.

THE OTTER

An otter sat on an outcropping of rock,

trying to break open a clamshell

with a small, pointed stone it had found.

And as it toiled away,

night and day,

it began to wonder

whether what was concealed within the clamshell

truly held value.

And in this instant,

WHOM appeared.

And WHOM spake.

“Why dost thou toil, my child?”

The otter replied,

“I do that which I have been placed upon this earth to do,

and no more.”

“You are a wise otter,” quoth WHOM,

“and for that, I will reward thee beyond thy dreams.”

“Thank you,” replied the otter.

“I shall give you a castle, and as much food as thou couldst e’er desire.”

“Thank you,” replied the otter.

“I shall heap gold and gems upon thee until the rarest of topazes loses its luster in thy habituated eyes.”

“Thank you,” replied the otter.

“But,” replied WHOM, “to do this, you must follow me,

to the top of the hill.”

“I shall follow WHOM anywhere,” replied the otter.

“And,” continued WHOM,

“you must leave your clamshell behind.”

The otter gave a start.

“But what is in the clamshell?”

“Ah,” chuckled WHOM,

“that I cannot say.

Wilt thou join me?”

The otter wavered.

“I cannot, Your Grammarness,” the otter said at length, and after much deliberation. “To leave my clamshell is to leave my world, to give up what I have spent all my life working towards.”

“And yet,” replied WHOM, “would it not be more pleasurable to exult in the decadence atop the hill?”

“Nay,” the otter countered, its boldness surprising even it.

WHOM considered the otter.

“I am content with my life as it is. What care have I for that atop the hill?” the otter went on, more meekly. “To indulge in it is to grow reliant on it.”

WHOM smiled, and considered the otter more carefully, and for a longer time.

“A jarring proclamation, to be sure, my child,” said WHOM, “but you have made a decision few creatures on this Earth or any other could make. For that, I shall tell thee what thy clamshell holds.”

And WHOM told the otter, and the otter worked at its clamshell

forevermore.

AFTERLIFE

Where do we go when we die?

This is a question all of us wish to know the answer to,

and a question none of us are qualified to answer.

Yet we must try.

As we did our best to describe the complexion of WHO itself,

so must we try to describe

the realm

of Héve Ancrux.

It is not a land which one could see with one’s eyes, strictly speaking.

Rather,

as the soul is ejected from the body,

the sixth sense of proprioception takes hold, greater than e’er before,

and the body senses where it is

and what Ancrux holds.

Héve Ancrux is a dual land.

Everything about it reflects its duality.

The concept of gravity no longer exists in the traditional sense,

for Héve Ancrux exists on another plane of reality.

Still, as you find yourself in the Æntrance Hall,

your feet are indeed on the floor.

This means that a floor must exist, you reason.

You step forward, and in doing so,

realize that you have a form,

a body,

if you will,

though it isn’t solid as before.

The walls are smooth stone,

a deeper gray than any you have ever known.

Not pure gray—there are small flaws, minuscule aberrations in color,

but the wall is only made more perfect by these slight imperfections.

Sconces light the hallway.

The fire that flickers within them changes its coloration as you stare,

first the warm orange of the hearth,

then the yellow of the sun,

then the green of sea-brine,

before settling on the blue

of your soul.

You take another forward.

Your shoes—it seems you have shoes—click loudly on the marble floor. The marble is black as raven-feathers, perfectly matching the walls.

When did the walls change?

Jet-black marble pillars now line the hall, a veritable vanguard against what is to come.

You approach a desk that seems to have materialized from air.

Is there air here? Do I need air?

The man sitting behind the desk reminds you of a bank teller. In fact, the whole Æntrance Hall reminds you of a bank now.

His piercing silver eyes shine behind his spectacles as he stares at you intently, gazing into your soul.

Perhaps that’s all you are now, a soul. 

He speaks.

“Welcome to the Æntrance Hall.”

His voice is flat and expressionless as his face, with the exception of his eyes. Those silvery orbs glare, lamplike, inexorable, at your insubstantial self, whatever wisp of you stands before him in this hallway.

“Papers?”

“WHOM,” you reply.

With a sniff, the man steps aside, revealing what you see to be a river.

There's a certain elegance to the British way of spelling things. If I had to make an analogy, I would compare the British way of spelling to an antique davenport, and the American way of spelling to a crudely cut rushing blue river in an extremely red mesa.

How true this is.

What you see before you is a pale imitation of the mesa you knew in life, a Cocytus to end all Cocyti.

The souls of the slain litter the river,

poignant corpses.

The river runs silvery-blue

with the wisps

it is fed.

There is no raft to cross this river.

The man with the flat voice is gone.

You must swim.

Swim you do.

And as you swim,

you hear voices in your ear,

voices which sing of that which you cannot imagine,

howl their eternal curses onto the air.

Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gnash the skin; so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams…

As the Black Wind once sang,

so sang the river.

So sang the wood

of the bridge,

sung wood—

wait, bridge?

You could have sworn ‘twas not there before,

but now you are standing on the bank,

and a balsa-wood bridge leads to the other side.

You walk across,

knowing that you died in that river,

yet certain you were already dead before entering.

How many times dead are you now?

Not clear.

But you step

off the bank

and into a field

which,

through the Ages,

has gone by many names,

names innumerable,

names indefinite.

Yet all are a part of the One Name,

Whom.

And as you stand

in what seems to be an endless cornfield,

a twister arises

in the west.

It is not of wind

but of fire

and the world is consumed

in flames

and ash.

Suddenly you are falling.

You fall down what seems to be a well,

only the bricks that line the sides are aflame,

and ruddy even without the fire licking their sides.

The air itself has a red tint of sorts,

and just as you note this,

the walls vanish.

Things begin to happen rapidly.

You leap through a hoop of fire,

a ring—

perhaps 

a maw—

and find yourself to be

an ant

on a leaf.

You scuttle slowly

on legs sence formed,

until you find yourself

simply

gone.

Or—perhaps it’s not you that is gone,

but the world.

There is naught but void

in all directions,

and in this nothingness,

a realization comes to you.

Everything you have experienced

did not happen.

I do not simply mean your experiences in Héve Ancrux.

Your entire life

was falsified,

a veritable play

put on by your soul

and the souls of others.

Ancrux was the key to your realization.

Héve Ancrux,

in the True Tongue,

that Tongue of the One Name

and the Eruditio,

translates to “Heaven’s Key”,

or “That Which Is Not”.

Yet this is not in reference to the realm

you have just traversed,

but the life

you have just lived.

You understand now

that the world you were once a part of

is not the true world.

And in this moment

of realization,

four Hands appear

from the darkness

and envelop you.

You are brought into a hall.

It is the Æntrance Hall

and it is the Hall where Seraphine once met with WHOM.

It is every hall

and no hall

all at once.

And here

you see—

how to put this?

For what is a crux?—

you see

the mangled body

of Seraphine,

the Pink One.

The Vision is unclothed.

Her porcelain skin is white as ever.

Nails have been driven through

her wrists and ankles.

Her pink irises are forever extinguished

beneath her closed eyelids.

Her battered tiara

lies at her feet.

The Vision stands

spread-eagled,

head held high and haughty as ever,

wholly dead,

on a cross.

Héve Ancrux,

reads the inscription.

And you stare

at the corpse

on the cross,

twisted in its beauty

and beautiful in its twistedness,

and you take the four Hands that surround you.

WHOM

leads you

out of the hall

into reality.

And you

are born.

ROSES

A single wilted rose

sat in a jar

on the red-tiled roof of a house.

The rose simply sat

and questioned the world.

Why did the donkey,

passing by along the trodden road,

put himself before his cart?

El burro delante para que no se espante.

The rose remained,

a sad and lonesome figure,

until the grocer came along

and placed a fellow rose

in the jar.

Every rose has its thorns,

to be sure,

but this one seemed to be pricklier than most.

Prickly in an enticing way.

The two roses

blew in the wind

until

one day

the rachis snapped,

yielded,

and the roses bent,

their petals to touch

in a brilliant shower of affection.

And suddenly a breeze arose in the Mountains of Mist.

And the new rose

blew away in the breeze

and was lost

and only a single flower

remained.

We can all learn from this.

Sometimes it is better

only to possess

one,

only to have

a single rose

in the jar.

CIPHER

Fear the Vision, for when she speaks,

none shall withstand her honeyed words.

When gravity falls and earth becomes sky,

beware the beast with just one eye.

The word whom knew all that was.

The word whom knows all that is.

The word whom shall know all that will be.

WHOM is infallible.

Every action of WHOM is perfect.

Thus,

when,

each century

(or—

can it be such a short time?

Such a long time?

Time sleeps.

Time may be languid,

yet Time is constantly active—

the time matters not),

WHOM chooses a muse to inspire,

‘tis not folly.

And oftentimes, ‘tis not whom thou thinkest.

This is the tale

of WHOM.

A maiden lay listlessly

in an abandoned marital bed

atop a tower

so staggeringly tall

that a fall would result in death

from old age.

And a knock sounded at her door.

The maiden crossed the room.

The silk slip she wore was scant enough

not to make the faintest rustle.

She opened the door,

with a creak that pained her unhabituated ears,

and gazed upon

the weeping visage of WHOM.

“Dear fellow,” spoke she,

“why dost thou weep?”

“I weep,” replied the Great One,

“for thee.

For thy beauty,

and thy life.”

And the maiden 

swept WHOM into her arms

and the four hands of WHOM

took the maiden

and,

in some strange way,

that night,

WHOM was WHOM,

and yet WHOM was not.

WHOM was content

simply to be.

Yet

corruption—

cannot—

be—

ignored.

Did the toe fungus teach us nothing?

In this instant,

WHOM envied humans,

and yet WHOM

was human.

GENERATIONS

Time passes.

Time moves steadily forward.

The Great Rolling

had unintended consequences,

as so many things throughout history do.

The Wheel of Time turns,

and Ages come and pass,

leaving memories that become legend.

Legend fades to myth,

and even myth is long forgotten

when the Age that gave it birth

returns again.

Askr and Embla

first procreated

millennia ago,

yet their story reverberates through Time.

And on this day,

a pair of humans

walked down a bustling city street

in Alsace.

“Look!” remarked one.

“The icicles on that fence!”

“They’re too perfect to be real,”

conceded the other,

“and yet they are, somehow.”

“Perfection can be found in the smallest of details,”

said the first.

Much was left unsaid, of course.

They continued to stroll along their path.

Eventually they were led to a quaint fromagerie

in Paris.

“The Paris-Brest!” quoth one.

“It’s marvelous!”

“Delectable indeed,” concurred the second.

And the walk went on,

past the Seine.

“They’re selling miniature Eiffel Towers!” squealed one.

“Forsooth,” quoth the second...