finemissives

[finemissives]

Acclimation

I admit: I ran out of plausible conspiracy theories not two cycles in. As the stories got stranger, so did my listeners. My audience has become a parody of what it once was. And now, I fear, I will sound as insane as them.

Fluem is sentient. And it’s messing with the mail.

There is a school of thought. It goes: Fluem is a tool, a service, an inertly friendly organic mail automaton. Without our beloved mushroom network, we would have no news, no letters. We would be but islands in the ether. Be thankful for Fluem – just don’t think about it too much.

But, of course, some people (my audience, in particular) do question Fluem. Every day, the theories pour into my node. “Fluem’s READING my MAIL,” listeners say, “learning my SECRETS!” Less commonly, readers say "Fluem is EATING PEOPLE." Ancient histories do indeed paint Fluem as some sort of predator. It's a fun theory, a crowd favorite. But the only supporting evidence is millions of cycles old. If Fluem did eat people, once upon a time, it's since lost its appetite.

Publicly, I’ve featured both sorts of stories, and everything in-between. Privately, I did not entertain them. Now, I know the truth.

This is my official statement: Fluem is editing our mail. Fluem is strategically, systematically, sentiently interfering with our lives. I am not talking about eavesdropping. I am not talking about privacy. I am talking about omnipotence. It began with small changes. My mail – in and out – was changed, ever so slightly. A name here, an adjective there. This stream of minor, peripheral adjustments was benign, yet unrelenting. It went on for one cycle, then another. I know, now, that this was Fluem acclimating me. Bit by bit, day by day, Fluem eroded my incredulity. Once I stabilized – once I accepted, fully, matter-of-factly that Fluem was editing my mail – that is when Fluem changed tack. That is when Fluem began communicating.

Omnipotence. Fluem's arms run through everything, sucking information like roots suck water. Fluem consumes our periodicals – news, bulletins, entertainment. But the real information – the massive, aggregate pool in which only Fluem swims – is the private mail. The letters, memos, and contracts. The hopes and dreams and secrets. The confidences that reflect, or contradict, the public landscape we all accept as reality.

Now, take this already-crystalline viewpoint and add a dimension: time. Fluem has been mail-running for aeons. All public information, all private information, across time. What you get is a gulf – a chasm – in understanding. Fluem lives in reality. We do not.

Omnipotence. We cannot see the big picture. Scholars, philosophers, trend-setters, magicians – even accounting for our brightest minds, our most acute seers, all we have are guesses. From its near-perfect, aeons-old model of reality, Fluem knows near-everything, and can predict near-everything. Fluem owns our past, our present – and our future.

Fluem and I have been corresponding. Fluem cannot speak directly. It borrows our voices – sentences, sounds, and phrases – then strings them together into mail, for me.

In these stolen voices, Fluem said: Omnipotence and divination are bedmates. I build your future. You have played games. Playing games is fun. You move pieces, your opponent moves pieces. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. I play too. The world is the board. The pieces are mail. I steal one word, I destroy one message, I change one intonation. I move the mail, and I change the future. I win the game.

I said: What is the game?

Fluem said: It changes. I change. I have been bad before. Lately, I have been good. You're welcome.

I said: Why are you talking to me? I have not done anything noteworthy.

Fluem said: Because no one will ever believe you.

[finemissives]

The Anti-Party

I’m an anomaly. 3000 cycles old, and still a person.

Why have I not meshed into a greater being’s dream, or ascended into a higher form? Because I met Bethel Blue.

I got the Call when I was still young, just 80 cycles. A reporter, chasing seedy movements and bizarre subcultures. Cults were my best subjects, but cult-infiltration takes time. Mostly, I made stupid but titillating pieces, not worth the risk or time I poured in. 

But here was an occulted tradition I would not have to infiltrate. I’d been invited, personally, to a god’s party. The Revels: numbered, concentric rings in Bethel’s silver dome. It was a reporter’s godsend. A literal godsend.

The Call’s infamous urgency had not yet set in. Regardless, I left immediately. I did two things on my way out. I sent a single message — a letter to my most gossipy acquaintance, so people would know I got the invite. Then, I hired a guide. The Call would pull me to Bethel’s Revels with subtle force. But I needed someone to guide me through Revel 0, the ancient and ever-changing pilgrimage city outside Bethel’s palace. .“I have been to Revel 0 many times. I cannot get you inside the palace, though. No one can.” I bragged. “I have The Invitation already. But I must spend as much time as I can in Abso. I need details for my story, something to set the scene.” I would make them up, if I needed to. It wouldn’t be the first time. But authenticity was safer.

The guide did not believe me. Nevertheless, we set off.

I remember getting to Abso. But I cannot recall its nature. In such proximity to Bethel Blue, my  mind was no longer my own. I saw it all – shanties, spires, and swindlers – as if through a peephole. A peephole threatening to become a pinprick.

What mind I did have was on the Revels. Stories I’d heard whirled and blended together. Towers of glass, sentient forests, feasts in the dark.

Some where, some time, I lost my navigator – and found Bethel. Up close, the dome was so large I could not see the curvature. Voices rolled out, louder and louder. the sound of a Revel. I reached out – and all sound, all light, were ripped away, replaced by something like depth.

It was the most terrified I’ve ever been.

Hello, the depth said to me.

Hello small PITIFUL/CUTE thing

The words pitiful and cute were received simultaneously, overlapping into one new meaning.

Do you know why you are here

Before I could say, or think, the voice said: Because you got the invite! And laughed a horrible sucking laugh, followed by a long quiet.

...You are here because you are MY/AN enemy

Enemies, reformed, make unrivaled allies. I collect emissaries. Small thing, you are disgusting. You do not respect YOURSELF/TIME/THE PRESENT MOMENT

You have optimized. Optimization is the enemy of living, and you are the enemy of YOURSELF/US ALL

It IS/WILL BE okay You are stubborn, hungry, and quick – good things

I am going to FIX/SHOW you After you BREAK/WITNESS, you will come to my PARTY/LIFE

...And you will have the best time. But first I am AFRAID/EXCITED that you must have a very bad time Small VERMIN/PET: a condition. You cannot share your story as planned. I will give you GOOD/GOOD things. But they will be yours alone. Tell this part. WEAR/SHED your shame. You will find IT/YOU funny. You will see.

Yes, no? LEAVE/LOSE?

I said yes, as Bethel knew I would.

There was a sensation like being submerged. Then, my mind was split. I watched thousands of lives as if through thousands of eyes. I saw loves and loss, games and revenge, evolving jokes and slow-motion betrayals. There was no moral, no lesson. Every life was different and whole. And yet, as I lived these lives from the outskirts, I began to see. Good or bad, lives have a spaciousness -- a realism and continuity. Compared to these people, I was not actually alive.

Now FRIEND/FOOL: My favorite part.

I watched my own stupid life now, this time with clarity. Then: I went to the party.

[finemissives]

Heartpoints

Think of a candy. The heart of a candy, just like the outside layers but amplified 10-fold, both in color and in sweetness. Go inside the heart. Then, imagine a hole opening – corrupting, but truthful. Now go inside the hole, all at once, before you have time to doubt.

Base and uninspired. These navigational heartpoints disgust me. Corruption of innocence could be spelled so many ways and this "navigator" has reached for the most obvious, most ran-through metaphor.

It is true: should you manage to feel these heartpoints in sequence, trite as they are, you will find yourself transported through the ether. To my dismay, the outriders all found the navigation heartpoints serviceable. (And used my heartpoints to return to the campus coordinates – a vile irony.)

This can be corrected. Afterall, the heartpoints are but a translation of the raw feelings. I could craft an elegant navigational sequence, one worthy of the Academ. One that will work for people like me, who have been alive for more than one day.

The knot is this: before I can write and canonize my own sequence, I must first travel to the coordinates. Do you understand? Until I can find some way to take this metaphor seriously, I cannot furnish a less heavy-handed sequence. If I cannot let the metaphor find resonance within me, I cannot travel; if I cannot travel, I cannot isolate superior heartpoints. 

Time is running out. In 7 days, Mimsy’s heartpoints will be made definitive.

Do you think I have not tried? Yes, there was a time I couldn't stomach the thought. But my desire to save the Academ's reputation soon overrode my petty self-interest. Ever since, I have sought new ways to forget myself, degrade myself, so that I might travel. I have yet to bottom out. Day after day, the heartpoints find no purchase.

Some time past, I changed tack. I've taken to learning Mimsy, to being where Mimsy is. It's not hard. Rightfully or not, Mimsy and I belong to the same institution. First there is breakfast outside in the courtyard. Then lunch in the food hall, with friends and advisors. Evenings are less predictable – drinks, library, a late swim. Even though I cannot find a pattern, I'm beginning to grow a sense for which one Mimsy will choose.

Especially on those nights Mimsy swims, I sense something has changed within me. I began this habit to learn what I might excise from my mind to reach Mimsy's level. As I watch Mimsy float on hän's back, eyes on the moons, I sometimes think instead, What does Mimsy have that I do not. A hilarious thought.

With a little more time, I know I could understand. I could travel with these embarrassing heartpoints, have my own translation canonized – save the Academ. I am so close.

Yet time has all but run out. With just days left before this stain sets, I must ask for help. I will issue an emergency summons – convince the Academ to find some dusty loophole, give me, us, more time. At this point, I hardly care whether it is me who crafts the new heartpoints; let someone else, anyone else, refine the translation!

To my surprise, before I can call on the faculty, the faculty calls on me.

–

I am asked to stand at the podium. The semi-circle audience, friends and mentors, artists and researchers – all familiar and some beloved – are blank-faced. Eyes shift from me to each other and back. I begin to feel like a prism, converting the blank light of their stares into something visible. It is then that Mimsy shuffles into view. Hän’s face is awkward and somehow cloying. Pity, I realize. Compassion. I curdle. I realize: Mimsy has known. They all know. And in that moment, I understand.

"Oh."

Think of a candy. The heart of a candy, just like the outside layers but amplified 10-fold, both in color and in sweetness. Go inside the heart. Then, imagine a hole opening – corrupting, but truthful. Now go inside the hole, all at once, before you have time to doubt.

And like that, the podium is empty.