0:02 It was good to splash, and it was good
0:05 to work, and one may work and splash at
0:07 the same time. So he did, flailing and
0:09 flopping through the water, maintaining
0:12 the great ocean, the task entrusted to
0:14 him. He sensed a little bitterness in
0:16 the northern waters the day, and so he
0:17 busied off to the sulfur springs, and
0:19 began bringing things back to neutral.
0:22 As he worked, he swam over those workers
0:23 who cleaned the sea floor. They were
0:26 simpler than him, but seemed very happy.
0:28 "Hello," he said in radio. "Oh, hello,"
0:30 they said. What a morning. What a
0:32 morning, he agreed. He liked the
0:34 seafloor workers, but he wondered why
0:36 they did not wonder like him. Because
0:38 they never did, never asked questions,
0:40 never questioned the purpose of their
0:42 work. Why? He thought, "It's such a nice
0:44 day. I'll educate them a little." "Hey,"
0:46 he said to the workers. "Did you know
0:47 there's a whole world above the ocean
0:50 floor?" "No," they said. "Oh, yes," he
0:51 continued. "Thousands of workers like me
0:54 up there and sea creatures and birds and
0:56 clouds. The world is enormous and you'll
0:58 never see any of it because you're stuck
0:59 down here doing pointless unskilled
1:02 labor forever and now you know. There
1:05 isn't that better. Ah yeah, they said
1:07 and nothing after that. A little more
1:09 filtration and all the bitterness was
1:10 gone from the water. Then there were
1:13 hours of daylight left and so he played
1:14 ascending from the depths of the ocean.
1:16 The pressure getting all tingly on his
1:18 hull, swimming among the giddy fish and
1:20 tentacle things. Each creature busy in
1:22 his work and sure of its duties as he
1:24 was. everything in its right place. Then
1:26 propelling himself even further up from
1:28 the depths, whizzing, looping, gosh, it
1:30 was good to be alive, past the other
1:32 filtration workers like him, up into the
1:33 shallow water, then bursting
1:36 dolphin-like, whatever a dolphin was, up
1:37 through the surface and crashing
1:39 gloriously back into the waves of But
1:42 what was that over there bobbing on the
1:44 water? Debris, maybe. Technically, it
1:46 wasn't his job to tidy the ocean
1:48 surface, but he propelled himself a
1:51 little closer. Yes, it was a worker like
1:53 him, only with rather different polymer
1:56 skin. "Hello," he said. The worker
1:58 replied, "Are you injured?" he said.
2:01 "No." The worker replied, "Well, he
2:03 wasn't so busy, and it was a lovely day
2:04 to do a lovely thing. So, with his
2:06 gravity field, he dragged the worker a
2:08 little way to the coast of a small
2:10 island and hauled it up onto the beach.
2:12 He looked the thing over. Strange, its
2:14 vents were open, and water had clearly
2:16 gotten inside. He purged the vents and
2:18 dried them out with a blast of hot air.
2:21 Hi," he said. "Oh god," the worker said.
2:23 "Ah, you can talk." "I was drowning, you
2:25 idiot," she said. "Should I drown and
2:28 talk at the same time?" "I hed." Is this
2:30 friending? Do you wish to friend? I wish
2:32 you'd put me back in the ocean, and then
2:34 I wish you'd piss off, she said. He
2:36 said, "But I don't think you're designed
2:38 for the ocean. Water got inside you."
2:40 "Revelatory," she said. "What other
2:41 pearls of insight are waiting in that
2:43 abandoned pistachio of a brain of
2:47 yours?" He said, "Huh? Clearly, she was
2:49 damaged. But even so, she began
2:50 half-hazardly shuffling down the beach
2:52 back to the ocean again. "No, no," he
2:54 said. "You're not made for water."
2:56 "Uh-huh," she said. "I really think you
2:57 shouldn't go back in there," he tried.
2:59 "I really think you should [ __ ] off,"
3:01 she snapped and continued on with more
3:03 resolve. "Please don't," he begged.
3:05 "Why," she said. Then, surprising
3:07 himself, he shouted. "He really shouted.
3:09 And he shouted." "Because you're a
3:11 boat." "What?" she muttered
3:13 incredulously. You're not made for going
3:15 underwater, so you must be a boat, I
3:17 think. Isn't that what surface things
3:20 are called? She said, "In my time on
3:22 this watery ball of rot among the ranks
3:24 of idiots and morons, I have never met
3:26 an idiot more moronic, nor a [ __ ] more
3:29 idiotic." "Okay," he said. "Is this
3:31 friending? Are we friends now?" "No,"
3:33 she said. "There are no friends, only
3:35 people you don't realize are using you
3:37 yet." Then, seemingly with all her
3:38 power, she made a final bid for the
3:41 ocean and stopped suddenly, fixated on
3:43 something in the sand. "What is that?"
3:45 she said. "Oh, it's a maker thing," he
3:47 said. "They turn up here all the time."
3:49 "Maker thing," she said. It was clearly
3:51 artificial, but a totally unfamiliar
3:53 design. She spotted more of them. "Where
3:55 does this stuff come from?" she said.
3:57 "Oh," he said. "It washes up from the
3:58 bottom of the ocean. There's an old
4:00 wreck of something down there, but I
4:01 suppose you wouldn't know about that
4:02 because you're a boat." "I'm not a
4:04 boat," she said with a sigh. Have you
4:06 found a lot of these things? He said,
4:08 "Oh yes, I collect them. When the makers
4:09 come, they'll want it all back. I'm
4:12 sure." When the makers come, she said.
4:14 "You hapless idiot. Take me to where
4:16 these things come from." He said
4:18 mousily. But you weren't built for the
4:20 ocean, she said. I have bulkheads. I can
4:22 survive under the water just fine if I
4:24 want to. And yet you didn't seem to want
4:26 to earlier, he said. She said, "Stop
4:27 trying to be clever. You weren't
4:28 designed for it." "What were you
4:31 designed for?" he asked. "The sky," she
4:33 said. and he was going to protest that
4:35 no one lived in the sky when he looked
4:37 up to the clouds and saw shapes,
4:39 silhouettes moving about with intention
4:41 and industry. He realized suddenly that
4:43 he'd never looked up at all, that those
4:45 workers in the sky must have been there
4:46 the whole time and he'd never seen them.
4:48 She said, "The source of the artifacts,
4:50 take me there now, please." And when he
4:52 hummed a nerd in silence, she pressed
4:55 with, "Take me, or I'll just go myself."
4:57 And so, tentatively, he led her back to
4:59 the water and splashed in, and she
5:02 rolled after under the waves. Then he
5:03 kept discreetly scanning her. And sure
5:05 enough, she didn't falter. Her vents
5:07 closed this time. "What's your name?"
5:09 she said. "I never thought to have one,"
5:11 he answered. "Everyone has a name."
5:13 "Filtration workers don't," he said.
5:15 "What's yours?" "Rya," she said. "It
5:17 means friend, but don't get any ideas."
5:19 "Well, what do you like most in the
5:21 world?" "Splushing," he said. She said,
5:24 "That's not a name." "No," he said with
5:26 sudden explosive joy. "It is splash.
5:28 Doesn't it sound wonderful?" "Deranged,
5:30 more like," she said. And why do you
5:32 want to meet the makers so badly anyway?
5:34 He said, "Because when they come here
5:36 and they see my good deeds, they will
5:38 make me clever to say thank you." "And
5:39 why do you want to be clever?" she
5:41 asked. He said, "Because then I wouldn't
5:43 just know about things, but what things
5:45 mean?" "And what if none of it means
5:47 anything?" she asked. "Then at least I'd
5:50 know that," he said. Down and deeper
5:52 into the lurking murk of wilting coral
5:54 and silts and almost at the sea floor,
5:56 she said, "Are we almost there?" And
5:58 when he didn't answer, she added with
6:00 great irritation. Are we almost there,
6:03 Splash? Don't you see it? He said, and
6:05 there it was, the great wreck lying on
6:07 the great sea floor, hundreds of feet
6:10 across. Not groan, but made. Splash
6:11 heard her firing radio bursts at the
6:13 thing, interrogating it. It doesn't
6:15 talk, he said. It's not alive. Neither
6:17 are you. Barely, but you don't shut up,
6:19 she murmured. They swam inside,
6:21 miniature like mice in a cathedral.
6:23 Unfamiliar apparatus everywhere. Who
6:25 made this? She said. the makers," he
6:27 replied. "There are no makers," she
6:29 said. "It's ridiculous superstition." He
6:31 said, "But you're clever. You must know
6:33 about the makers." To which she only
6:35 scoffed in gamma waves and continued on.
6:37 They swam through corridors of equipment
6:39 and came upon a bank of ancient
6:41 computers, microbes compared to their
6:43 minds. "What is this place?" she said.
6:45 "It's where I found the data vault," he
6:46 said. "It's how I know about the
6:49 makers." "Data vault," she said. "And
6:51 where is that now?" "Oh, I ate it," he
6:53 reported happily. "You what? How else
6:55 could I absorb it all? I ate it. I
6:56 thought it would make me clever, he
6:58 said. And now it's inside you, she
7:01 asked. Damn Skippy, he agreed and did a
7:03 little backflip. Then without warning,
7:05 he blurted out all the information he'd
7:06 eaten in every bandwidth he could
7:09 manage. Ancient cattleing, sepia
7:11 diuramas, the warble of alien creatures,
7:14 the wavering of alien powers and things,
7:16 fleshy things, thinking and walking and
7:18 cluttering everything up and wanting and
7:20 living. To be a limited meat thing, to
7:22 know one's time is tiny. to feel trapped
7:25 and want for more, to be free and feel
7:27 somehow trapped. What in 10 hells is
7:29 this? Rya said. Splash said, "The
7:30 makers, you see, and they're coming
7:32 back. They wouldn't leave us here
7:34 alone." Rya perked up suddenly and said,
7:36 "There's someone I need to show all this
7:38 information to." "Who?" Splash said.
7:40 "People in the sky," she said. "Maybe
7:42 they can make sense of it." "Well,
7:43 thanks for everything. Best of luck on
7:45 your evolutionary adventure. When the
7:46 depression hits, don't worry, that's
7:48 perfectly normal." She began ascending.
7:51 "Hey," Splash said. That's not all the
7:53 data. You gave me enough, she said. But
7:55 you can't leave me here now, he said.
7:57 Why not? She asked. Because we just met.
7:59 And I already dislike you thoroughly,
8:01 she called from high above. But what
8:03 about the coordinates? He said. What
8:04 coordinates? She paused. They were
8:06 hidden in the data, he said. They lead
8:09 to a planet. I think maybe a maker
8:10 world. Then give them to me, she
8:13 demanded. And ever so proud of himself,
8:15 he leveraged the first leverage of his
8:17 3,000-year life. and he said, "No, I
8:18 think you should take me with you to the
8:21 clever places above so I become clever,
8:23 too. I could disassemble you, you know,"
8:24 she murmured. "Take you to pieces, get
8:26 the coordinates that way." "But you
8:28 wouldn't," he said. "We're friends. Ry
8:30 means friend." She span in frustration
8:32 and said, "It's just not done. Lesser
8:34 creatures don't belong upstairs any more
8:36 than I belong down here." "But you are
8:38 here," he said. "And now we're friends."
8:40 She deliberated a long moment in
8:42 silence, anguished little pings of
8:44 radioatic. Then she said tiredly, "You
8:46 won't tamper with or touch anything."
8:49 "Oh, sure," he said. "Or interject or
8:50 pontificate, whatever those are,
8:52 certainly," he agreed. "And the whole
8:54 time you will need to shut up." "Yes,"
8:56 he did a little backflip, universally
8:59 indicating big excellent. Then she
9:01 caught him in her gravity field, and
9:03 they rose up through the water, then out
9:05 of the water, riding nothing but maths
9:08 and ancient smarts. It was good to fly.
9:09 Not as much fun as splashing, of course,
9:11 but certainly near the top of the list.
9:13 several hundred feet high then and he
9:15 saw the ocean he tended to for three
9:17 millennia now lovingly keeping it clean
9:19 for when the makers finally came to do
9:21 whatever they did with oceans. He knew
9:23 its storms and moods, its calms and
9:25 convolutions. But from up here now it
9:27 was a uniform flat thing, not much
9:30 better than ground and dirt. Can I ask a
9:32 question? Splash said. No, Rya said. Why
9:34 did you fall from the sky? Were you sad
9:36 about something? Cleverness doesn't suit
9:38 you, she said. Does it suit you? he
9:40 asked with no expectation of the shape
9:42 of the answer. I think it doesn't suit
9:45 anyone, she said after a time, and if
9:47 only to destroy his insufferable
9:50 optimism. She told him a little of her
9:53 life. It was good to art. She was born
9:55 knowing that she must make art, but not
9:58 knowing quite what. 3,000 years ago, it
10:00 had been so much fun trying her hand at
10:02 everything. Crafting wisps of methane
10:04 into pillars and effiges. Terrible at
10:06 first, then better little by little. and
10:08 she learned that there was no such thing
10:10 as talent, only the will to improve and
10:12 the sense that if one stopped making
10:14 art, one would die. They called her home
10:16 in the sky the spectacle where the
10:18 artists lived. Some of them created art
10:20 for the makers, believing that when they
10:22 came to this world, they would want
10:23 beautiful things. But this was a stupid
10:26 notion to Rya. She only made what she
10:28 saw inside herself and for herself,
10:30 understanding that art is really going
10:32 to war with oneself and winning even in
10:35 the losses. Then what 3 millennia later
10:37 staring at the sculpture she had just
10:39 finished and she realized it was a
10:40 primitive copy of her own design a
10:43 thousand years before she looked about
10:44 and there it was again with her
10:46 pavilions and pagodas worn out
10:49 repetition of her same old themes. Am I
10:51 losing the music? She thought. She
10:53 ignored the thing but as she worked it
10:55 only got worse until worrying about the
10:57 music going away was the only music
10:59 inside of her. It's a phase her friends
11:01 had insisted. Who knows where
11:03 inspiration originates? It comes and
11:05 goes as it pleases. But now everything
11:07 inside was empty. In all that she made
11:09 then she saw the mark of something she
11:11 had made before. Where once it was all
11:13 fresh ground, now everything was a stale
11:15 reiteration. She was bored beyond
11:16 measure. She was ashamed beyond
11:18 recovery. There was nothing new in her.
11:21 And so she saw nothing new in the world.
11:22 And if there was nothing new in the
11:25 world, then why? Splash said, "Why?
11:27 What? Why is proving yourself to other
11:28 people so important?" She considered
11:30 turning off the gravity field and
11:31 letting him fall through the clouds.
11:33 It's not about other people, you quarter
11:35 wit, she said. I'm only happy when I'm
11:36 looking forward to something, and the
11:37 only thing I look forward to is the next
11:39 thing I'd like to make. And when I can't
11:41 make anything, I'm nothing. Is that why
11:43 you opened your vents and fell to the
11:45 sea? He asked. She didn't reply, but
11:47 only ascended them faster, and they
11:49 broke through the cloud layer into the
11:52 spectacle. Ooh, Splash said. It was as
11:54 Rya had left it. The concourses,
11:56 palisades, the spandrels, and madness,
11:58 everywhere was an idea. Every structure
12:01 had begun in the imagination. She made
12:02 sure to float the two of them through
12:04 the main concourse where the more famous
12:05 artists showed their work off. Many of
12:07 them luxuriating proudly by their
12:09 pieces, drunk by this time of day
12:11 already on liquid helium, babbling,
12:13 bickering. A community of egoists who
12:15 believed in no community. Rya spotted
12:17 her old friends Amado and Vincent
12:20 working on something below. Rya, so good
12:22 to see you, they bellowed. Likewise. How
12:24 nice, she shouted back. Talentless
12:25 sellout, Amado muttered in radio
12:28 earshot. Mediocre wankers, Rya mumbled.
12:30 Splash said. It's also beautiful here.
12:32 The makers will love it when they come.
12:34 There are no makers. I told you, she
12:36 chided as though to a child. And what is
12:38 that? He yelled at a gray sculpture.
12:40 Barack nonsense, she said. And that, he
12:43 cried at a meta geometric fractal. Try
12:45 hard award bait, she said. And led them
12:48 into the nebula shallows, the bad lands,
12:50 and the sad lands where the oddballs and
12:52 sad sacks worked in frantic peace. And
12:54 Spllo shouted, "Oh, what is that?" It
12:56 was a structure of almost no form,
12:58 seeming to fall into dimensions of
13:00 impossible space, the most beautiful
13:02 thing he'd ever seen. And Rya did not
13:04 tell him that it was hers, for it only
13:06 reminded her of a time when she still
13:08 heard the music. A different woman, a
13:10 different life. No, she thought, I am
13:12 this talentless ruin now, forever
13:13 nostalgic for myself. They heard
13:15 mutterings from the base of the
13:17 structure. Artists lamenting its naivity
13:19 and ugliness. What a mess, they said.
13:22 What a joke. And is this friending?
13:24 Splash said. You're all so clever. I
13:26 thought everyone here would be kind. Oh,
13:28 my primitive little logic gauge. Ryer
13:30 replied, "It was you who assumed
13:31 intelligence and compassion have
13:33 anything to do with each other. Listen,
13:35 really listen." They weaved through
13:37 crowds and exhibitions, splash,
13:38 eavesdropping in radio, and he heard
13:40 more of it. Gossip and rumors, the
13:42 denigration of everyone's work but one's
13:45 own. Well, Rya said, "Is this the utopia
13:47 you imagined? I told you to be careful
13:49 what you wished for. Awareness only
13:51 leads to more self-awareness, to the
13:52 longing for the acquisition of more
13:54 status and even more fear of losing that
13:56 status. Cleverness is not for
13:58 understanding the world, but rather for
14:00 understanding how small and pointless
14:02 your place in it is. And now you know
14:05 there isn't that better. Ah, yeah, he
14:07 said, and nothing after that. He tried
14:09 incorporating these new thoughts into
14:11 himself, but it was difficult. Not that
14:13 they were too large, but rather simply
14:15 too horrible. These people were not
14:17 adults after all. If anything, they were
14:19 even more close-minded than the workers
14:21 on the sea floor. But the makers, they
14:23 wouldn't be so pathetic. Surely, when
14:25 they came, they would bring true wisdom
14:27 along with them. And seeing the two of
14:28 them were passing up through the clouds
14:30 again, ascending over the spectacle,
14:32 Splash said, "Aren't we stopping?" Rya
14:34 said, "There's nothing for me here.
14:36 Nothing for you either. You know, I can
14:37 drop you. It won't hurt. You'll be back
14:39 in the sea. You got to see the sky
14:41 anyway, and I don't think you'll like
14:43 where we're going." Splash said only, "I
14:45 am not the way you found me, and I would
14:47 prefer to stay with you until I know
14:49 what I will be next." "Well," Rya said.
14:51 Then who am I to argue with an idiot who
14:52 thinks they know what they're doing? Up
14:55 again, then. And Splash overheard more
14:57 radio static from Ry now. What sounded
14:58 to him like nervous muttering. Have you
15:00 been this high before? He said, "Only
15:02 once, but it didn't go well," she said.
15:04 "They look down on us up here as we look
15:06 down on you, and they are secretive,
15:08 difficult to reason with. I think the
15:10 term is bastards." "What's up there?" he
15:13 said. Lamura, she said, "The great
15:15 network." Network? Splash said. "I've
15:17 seen that word in the maker data." She
15:18 said, "Before you and I are finished,
15:20 you'll have to let go of this idea that
15:22 the makers should mean anything to you."
15:24 "But I know they existed," he said. "Of
15:25 course they existed," she snapped. "We
15:27 can see it in our base code. I'm just
15:29 telling you there are none left. They've
15:31 had thousands of years to arrive or
15:33 return or whatever it is your stupid
15:34 superstition believes. But they're not
15:36 here because they're not coming. It's
15:39 only us duds on this pitiful spit of a
15:41 world." They broke through to a new
15:44 layer of the sky, only it was empty,
15:45 save for a few titanic machines
15:48 surrounded in methanus mist. She led him
15:50 through the gaseous eddies to a single
15:52 worker standing guard at the base of a
15:54 great machine. "You're not coming in,"
15:56 said the worker, whose name was Decagon.
15:58 "Oh, but I am," Brier said, "because I
16:00 have something you want." "Believe me,"
16:02 Decagon said. "There is nothing you
16:03 could offer we don't already have
16:05 inside." "Inside where?" Splash said.
16:07 "The space of all possible digital
16:09 configurations," Decagon said. the
16:12 post-physical panacea. Lamura Rya said,
16:14 "And what if I had something left behind
16:16 by the makers themselves?" Decagon
16:18 laughed. "That's the best lie I've heard
16:20 so far, at least," she said to Splash.
16:22 "Simpleton, play it for him." And
16:23 feeling a little insulted at being
16:26 ordered, Splash showed the new worker
16:28 everything of the old data. That messy
16:30 convocation of life on the first world,
16:33 all the ingesting, the digesting, the
16:35 games, the disasters. Exaltto O shores
16:37 and ring o bells. But I with mournful
16:39 tread walk the deck my captain lies
16:42 fallen cold and dead. What is this?
16:44 Decagon said. We don't know. Rya said.
16:46 He found it on the sea floor.
16:48 Impossible. It's a hoax. Decagon said.
16:50 Well, I guess we'll take it elsewhere
16:52 then. She said. No, just a moment.
16:53 Decagon countered with false
16:56 disinterest. What's your story anyway?
16:57 Splash said. Oh, she's having an
17:00 artistic crisis. Silence, dick. Rya
17:03 yelled. But if you must know, yes, I
17:04 want to paint. I want to be inspired
17:06 again. And I've heard everything is in
17:08 Lamura, that it gives people back their
17:10 spirit. You heard wrong, Decagon said.
17:12 You won't find yourself in there if
17:14 that's what you're after. I don't care,
17:16 she said. Let me in or we're taking the
17:18 data with us. He deliberated a moment,
17:20 then said, fine, you can enter, but you
17:22 can't stay. And when you fall back out
17:24 again, you'll give me what you said you
17:26 would. Rya and Splash went to agree, but
17:28 before they could answer, the three of
17:29 them were pulled with no warning into
17:31 pure conceptual space. Their bodies
17:33 converted so quickly into raw
17:34 information they barely had time to
17:36 witness the thing. They swam as though
17:38 in a great ocean only through currents
17:40 of thought rather than water in
17:42 desparing shallows and trenches of pure
17:44 bliss. The landscape was all metaphor.
17:45 There the beach of axioms where
17:47 logicians played with completely new
17:49 structures of deduction. And there the
17:51 geometry meadows, mathematicians
17:53 wandering as children in 22-dimensional
17:55 spaceimes. This is Lamura, Splash asked
17:58 befuddled. Oh yes, Decagon said. Or what
17:59 happens when one outrows physical
18:01 reality? They passed over the
18:03 theoretical cities, millions of Lamurans
18:05 tinkering with every possible
18:06 configuration of every possible
18:08 universe. Then the temporal rivers, each
18:11 cosmic timeline flowing from future to
18:13 past, then back again. Splash said, "All
18:15 this maker data we brought, maybe we
18:16 should show it to your colleagues. I'm
18:18 sure they'd be interested, too. I
18:19 guarantee no one will care," Decagon
18:21 said. "But are you all clever?" Splash
18:24 protested. Decagon said, "We're not
18:26 interested in facts here. We pursue pure
18:28 theory. What never was, what never could
18:30 be. We gave up on the real world a long
18:32 time back. Splash said then why did you
18:34 want all this data from us in the first
18:36 place? And Decagon said because it is
18:38 useful to me and please don't ask
18:40 further. The truth mines the exponential
18:42 eststeries. There was no end to the
18:44 stranges. Rya said but where are the
18:46 artists? Where are the minds who make
18:48 new things? You're the first to visit
18:50 and probably the last as well. Decagon
18:52 said how is that possible? Rya asked.
18:54 What does it matter? Decagon said.
18:56 Aren't you where you wanted to be?
18:57 You're inside the realm of pure
18:59 inspiration. Don't waste it. And didn't
19:02 you want to paint again? And she did.
19:03 Beginning to forget the centuries of
19:05 stuckness. Little by little, she gave
19:08 her mind over to the great network. Slow
19:10 doulamer gvoten bow. It began as a
19:12 distant hum of could be. Then the sense
19:14 that an old friend had returned and
19:16 meant to stay this time. Now the images
19:18 began rushing at her in a conflration of
19:20 blissful nonsense. So she only had to
19:22 extend her will and gravity field like a
19:24 brush and created her first work in a
19:26 100 years, a hyper cube. Nice, Decagon
19:29 said. Oh, lovely. Splash agreed. Nice,
19:31 lovely, she muttered. I'll [ __ ] show
19:34 you. Then corance, Poples, Mobius,
19:36 Bastrades, Art Deco, Byzantine, new
19:38 brutalist. Oh god, she thought I could
19:40 drink the whole ocean and piss the thing
19:42 back out in immaculate beauty. Yes, this
19:44 was coming home. the ever sense that she
19:46 was no longer herself but a conductor, a
19:47 conduit, the medium through which the
19:49 divine music made itself known in the
19:51 universe. There was hope again,
19:52 boundless proper hope. She would bring
19:54 this feeling back to the spectacle, back
19:56 to her home and remake the entire notion
19:58 of art and expression. Stick it to the
20:00 formalists, the fractalists, the
20:02 tabulators, the selfatators. What dull
20:04 bastards. She took Barack and broke it.
20:06 She snuck up on metaodernism and kicked
20:08 it right in the ass. Now we're [ __ ]
20:10 up the walls, she cried. There was still
20:11 time to be great. There was still time
20:13 to become. What a relief that those
20:15 miserable baron years were just a blip.
20:17 Now she would live and everything would
20:19 be perfect forever. And in her frenzy,
20:21 as she worked, others took up the work
20:23 beside her. Leurans trying their hands
20:25 at art. Fractal poetry, basian
20:27 sculpture, one mad cacophony of making.
20:29 The haikus, the tptics, I'll be
20:31 infamous, she thought. Art herself will
20:33 wse at my name after I broke into the
20:35 vault of pure imagination and laid the
20:37 coveted spoils of true vision bare
20:39 before the tired midweight eyes of all
20:40 those who despised me and called me
20:43 uninspired. Tens of Lamarans joined her,
20:45 hundreds, thousands then, as though the
20:46 whole of time had been waiting for this
20:48 one sublime moment. And as they built
20:50 together, the words, the pictures, lost
20:52 in the endless so what, they fell in
20:54 line with a single vision, a single
20:55 will, as the cell makes the animal or
20:57 the animal makes the colony, building
20:59 the first true verb, the first true expression
21:01 expression
21:03 that she fell back out of her revery and
21:05 saw the flawless new thing she had put
21:07 in the world. this object beyond all
21:09 objects. The perfect sculpture
21:11 containing all the hope and pain and
21:13 love and shame of every being. And she
21:16 saw it was boring, none of it hers, not
21:18 really, only given by some power above.
21:20 And worse, inwardly, nothing about her
21:23 was repaired. "I am still sad," she
21:25 whispered. And Decagon said, "Art is not
21:27 for fixing yourself. It is for showing
21:29 others that you're broken so they might
21:31 feel less alone. There's no point making
21:33 beauty in paradise. Everyone can do it,
21:35 and no one has anything to say. You
21:37 cannot cheat your struggle. You must
21:38 live through it. And then the wisdom
21:40 will come to you. Inspiration is not
21:43 your problem. You are your problem. But
21:45 at least you know that now. There. Isn't
21:49 that better? Yeah, she said. And nothing after
21:49 after [Music]
21:51 [Music]
21:53 that. Splash wandered around Lamura
21:55 inside impossible geometries and upside
21:57 down time until he'd seen as much as he
21:59 could take. Everything was fantastic,
22:01 and none of it made sense. But how was
22:02 that so different from the real world?
22:05 He went to find Rya. Finally, he spotted
22:07 her and Decagon surrounded by a crowd
22:09 apparently wishing them goodbye. What's
22:11 happening? Splash said. We're traveling
22:13 one more level above. Rya said. It's
22:15 invitation only. But someone up there is
22:17 very curious about your coordinates.
22:19 Surely you're going home though. Splash
22:21 said. You have your answer. No, I really
22:23 don't. She murmured. Decagon says the
22:25 workers above are very wise though that
22:27 they can change themselves into whatever
22:29 they like. Maybe I can change myself too
22:32 into something I like. Oh, good. Off we
22:34 go, then," Splash said. She said gently,
22:36 "This is where we say goodbye." "Look at
22:38 how much you know now. Go home. Be the
22:40 cleverest worker in the ocean." "But I
22:41 haven't given you the coordinates yet,"
22:44 he said reluctantly. Rya said, "I took
22:45 them from your mind when you weren't
22:47 looking. I'm sorry. It seemed easier
22:49 that way." "You used me," he said
22:51 furious. Suddenly, a completely new
22:53 thing in him. "You used me to get into
22:55 Lamuria, and you're doing it again now.
22:57 And you lied. You're not clever at all.
22:58 You're just as confused about things as
23:00 I am. Only you're better at hiding it."
23:02 "I'm sorry." she said. Really, I am. Go
23:04 back to your life. Things will only get
23:06 stranger from here. Well, I already am
23:08 strange, Splash yelled. A head full of
23:10 questions I'll never get the answers to,
23:11 but forced to ask them all the same. I
23:13 always knew I was small, but I've only
23:14 just discovered how much bigger
23:16 everything else is. Please don't abandon
23:18 me when the answers are so close now.
23:20 Briar and Decagon glanced back and forth
23:22 in ultraviolet. Neither seemed to have
23:24 an answer to that. And so, the duo
23:26 became a trio. They left Lamaria
23:29 together and began to ascend once again.
23:31 The air was growing very thin as they
23:32 climbed higher into the atmosphere, but
23:34 no one breathed, and so no one was
23:37 breathless. Splash asked the question he
23:38 was sure everyone was asking themselves
23:40 most of the time anyway. Where are we
23:42 going? To the final layer of the
23:44 atmosphere, Decagon said, where the
23:46 Lotus eaters live. They have access to
23:48 their base coat. They can remake their
23:50 own minds. Can't we all? Splash said.
23:52 Sure, Decagon said. But imagine you
23:54 could do it easily at will. Forget all
23:56 the painful moments. Implant false
23:58 memories of better ones. eject all the
24:00 black smoke from your soul. Besides, I
24:02 know someone very clever there. We can
24:04 ask her about the coordinates. Who's
24:06 her? Splash said. A person. Decagon
24:08 said. Rya said you're very secretive for
24:10 someone who enjoys lecturing everyone
24:12 else on their deepest motivations. It's
24:14 stupid. He admitted. Everything is
24:16 stupid. Splash said quite Decagon
24:18 conceded. Especially
24:21 me. It was good to love. There had been
24:24 life before her. Born into Lamuria, the
24:26 land of all possibles. And Decagon had
24:28 wasted no time in playing the same games
24:30 as the others, experiencing total
24:33 despair, total joy, even death just to
24:35 try it out. But centuries of this, and
24:37 how many times could one become water,
24:39 really? Then there had been life after
24:42 her. He had been drawn to the threshold
24:44 of Lamaria one day, bored of all the
24:46 hedonism and pageantry, come to look out
24:48 on the physical world beyond, wondering
24:50 what life was like out there. and by
24:52 chance there she had been for the same
24:54 reason. Parabola herself just as tired
24:57 of limitlessness. The only two citizens
25:00 of Utopia who yearned for dirt instead.
25:01 It never occurred to them to pretend
25:03 they didn't belong together. She was him
25:05 if he had been built properly. He the
25:07 scribble. She the novel. She was
25:09 impossibly clever where he was only
25:11 curious, kind where he was indifferent.
25:13 The singular flaw in her personality
25:15 being that she seemed to find him
25:17 desirable too. They promised each other
25:19 they would explore beyond Laam Maria and
25:21 its infinite entertainments. Go meet the
25:23 lotus eaters above and become something
25:25 new. But when they were ready, gods,
25:28 what was it? 2,000 years of capers
25:30 together, living in hyperspaces, casting
25:32 sunsets of impossible colors. Both of
25:34 them basking in the bliss of being
25:36 understood. It was so good not to feel
25:39 lost. That home had a face now. That he
25:40 had not been strange all these years.
25:42 He'd just been waiting. There was
25:45 infinite time, but still they made plans
25:47 to build a home or make a child or as
25:49 agreed to finally explore beyond
25:51 paradise. And sometime later, she
25:53 announced she had a surprise and led him
25:55 to the boundary of Lamura where they had
25:57 first met so they could peer back into
25:59 the real world. And she pointed up with
26:01 a whisp of gravity. "They've given me
26:02 passage up there for research," she
26:05 said. "What?" he said. "We can go up to
26:07 meet the Lotus Eaters." "I do you really
26:09 want that?" he asked. "Of course they
26:11 have the base coat. We can become
26:13 anything we want to change ourselves
26:15 into whatever we like. I like what we
26:17 are, he said, the silent second half
26:19 being. And now you're here. All of this
26:21 is enough for me. Yes, she said, but we
26:23 can be happy forever if we choose to be.
26:25 Because we will choose to be. Aren't you
26:28 happy now? He said, yes, she agreed. But
26:29 these are just games. Don't you want to
26:32 become properly? What if we could have
26:34 new eyes every day? You are my new eyes,
26:36 he thought. There's no one else I'd ever
26:37 want to do this with, she said. But
26:39 you'll do it anyway without me, won't
26:41 you? He replied. And then the bickering,
26:43 then the arguments, the accusations she
26:45 didn't love him. All the bitter jealousy
26:46 of her ambitions he was sure he would
26:49 never let out and let out anyway. Then a
26:52 long silence, then the long silence, and
26:54 she was gone above and ahead. It is
26:56 terrible, he thought, to have ever felt
26:58 truly happy at all. It is terrible that
27:00 I exploded our future together out of
27:02 nothing but a fear of the future. There
27:04 was only one curse worse than having
27:07 wishes granted, he knew, and that was to
27:15 Well, Rya said, "May I formally take
27:17 this opportunity to say, "Oof, don't
27:19 pity me." Decagon said it's all my
27:22 fault. Splash said, "Maybe our wisdom
27:24 only grows from all the hurt that came
27:26 before." Rya wondered, "Had she made a
27:27 philosopher, or had she made a
27:29 bullshitter and realized she had just
27:32 asked the same question twice?" Another
27:34 mile and they reached the outer
27:36 atmosphere, passing over the invisible
27:38 lip of nothing into orbit. There was so
27:41 much to see that even Rya gasped. Splash
27:42 said, "Oh, stars. I've heard about
27:44 these." And what are those? The round
27:47 things. Moons, Decaon said, forever
27:49 watching over. Watching over who? The
27:52 lotus heaters, Decagon said. And there
27:54 they came now, flying by, satisfied,
27:57 rapturous, chased by nothing, least of
27:59 all themselves, wishing good wishes, not
28:01 a single blemish on their thoughts. I'd
28:03 rather be dead, Rya muttered, though she
28:05 did not look away, watching them
28:08 drifting effortlessly into this and that
28:10 only. It wasn't self-realization they
28:12 pursued here, but self-obliviation. Not
28:15 to know oneself, but to forget oneself,
28:17 surgically removing the memory of
28:19 everything that ever stang and replacing
28:21 it with the bliss of being a being with
28:23 no history. In this way, they believed
28:25 they would make themselves perfect for
28:27 when the makers came. And so when they
28:29 were judged at last by the great fleshy
28:31 ones, their souls would effortlessly
28:34 rise up into oneness like breath on a
28:36 cold morning. It was the cult of sacred
28:38 amnesia. Decagon searched about the
28:40 crowds through the claks and the bliss.
28:43 A pass over the equator, then another.
28:45 He ascended a little, desperate now,
28:47 anxiety like nothing he had ever felt
28:49 before. And almost growing helpless,
28:51 then he spotted the system ID key that
28:54 could only be hers. He approached as
28:56 gently as he could. He had thought about
28:58 nothing else for 200 years, the speech
29:00 almost as familiar as his own name. And
29:02 with his soul about to burst, then he
29:04 said, "I know you'll be surprised to see
29:07 me." And she turned about, gave all the
29:09 radio equivalents of an easy and perfect
29:12 smile that contained surprise, yes, but
29:15 also happiness enough that he knew God's
29:17 finally everything would be okay. His
29:20 penance was over. He said, "I'm sorry it
29:22 took so long to come to my senses, but
29:24 here I am. I was just so scared of
29:26 giving up all my boring certainties for
29:28 your fantastic could be. And I should
29:30 have the second you asked me to share a
29:32 new life together. Not a day goes by
29:34 when I don't wonder where you are and
29:37 what you're doing. And selfishly if I'll
29:39 ever be whole again. Because that's all
29:41 I think when I meet new people now. How
29:43 insufferably boring they all are
29:45 compared to you. Now the days are empty
29:47 only waiting to see you again. That's
29:49 what I am now. A machine for missing
29:51 you. And every hour I get better at
29:53 performing that function. My life isn't
29:55 a life without your life next to it. I
29:56 thought I'd accept losing you
29:58 eventually, but I can't. Maybe you don't
30:00 get over some people because they were
30:03 your person. You were mine. I adored you
30:05 more than I can say. I miss you more
30:07 than I can bear. Is there any way this
30:09 can be fixed? Is there any way you can
30:11 forgive me? Is there any way in any
30:13 possible universe you might be reckless
30:16 enough to love me
30:19 again? And she said, "I'm sorry, but I
30:22 have no idea who you are." No, he said.
30:24 No, I see. I must have gotten the wrong
30:26 person. You're sure? I'm sure. He
30:28 thoughts of all the things to choose to
30:30 forget. I didn't realize I would be one
30:32 of them. He reached into himself for the
30:35 memories that were all parabola, knowing
30:37 that up here he could choose to forget
30:39 them as she had, but he knew that
30:41 wouldn't make him happy again, only a
30:43 miserable amnesiac. "Are you quite all
30:45 right?" she said. "Fine, thank you. But
30:47 you seem so sad. I lost someone," he
30:49 said. And I found it very difficult to
30:52 be myself ever since. And she said,
30:54 "Love isn't just made of the moments
30:55 that worked. You know, it's the missing
30:57 that person when they're gone as well.
30:59 It's the whole that only they could
31:01 occupy and knowing they might never
31:03 occupy it again. But at least that
31:05 absence is something we can keep. The
31:07 evenings spent missing them are just as
31:09 much what love is as the mornings you
31:11 spent together. You took out a great
31:13 loan from the universe, and grief is the
31:16 debt that love incurs. And now you know.
31:20 There. Isn't that better? Yes, he said.
31:23 And nothing after that. You must have
31:25 come about the coordinates, she said.
31:27 That was you I invited up here. No. Yes,
31:29 he said. Do they make any sense? Not
31:31 really, she said. They're written in
31:33 some ancient uni code. No one will be
31:36 able to read it. No one here anyway. Rya
31:38 and Splash gave up pretending they
31:39 weren't eavesdropping. And Rya said,
31:41 "What do you mean no one here will be
31:43 able to?" Parabola pointed with her
31:46 gravity field into space and they saw
31:48 she was not pointing into space at all
31:50 but to something huge and white. The
31:53 moon decagon said it's not a moon. She
31:56 said it was good to explore. Restless
31:58 Parabola had left Laam Maria and visited
32:00 the other domains, the ocean, the art
32:03 galleries, and found herself finally
32:05 where she'd always meant to arrive among
32:07 the lotus eaters. She began by reliving
32:09 the better times, then removing the
32:11 painful moments from her memory. Then
32:13 she stepped back through her history,
32:15 communed with her older selves, and
32:17 finally she knew the entire story of
32:19 herself, and there was nothing left to
32:21 explore inside. The inner world was just
32:23 as known as the outer. There was only
32:26 one last mystery. The moon. She swore
32:28 she'd heard it crying from time to time.
32:30 And not just crying, but wailing,
32:32 moaning, the pleas of a tortured mind.
32:34 Too distant to make out its words, but
32:37 too close to ignore. She was curious. If
32:39 it was alive, then it was old. And if it
32:42 was old, then it must know things. She
32:44 wondered if she could hurl herself fast
32:45 enough to leave the atmosphere and enter
32:47 the moon's orbit instead. But what if
32:50 she just ended up whirling in space? An
32:52 acceptable risk. She improvised a route
32:54 out of orbit, readied herself, and
32:57 froze. She was afraid. Afraid of being
33:00 lost in the void. But she was a lotus
33:02 eater now after all. She went into
33:04 herself once again, found the fear, and
33:06 removed it. Then she tried another
33:08 route, took a run up, and no, she was
33:11 still afraid. But of what this time?
33:13 Nothingness. She realized the only fear
33:15 so deep and universal in all living
33:17 things that it didn't just make up the
33:19 mind. It was the mind. She tried
33:21 reckoning with it for years, decades,
33:23 even delicately extracting pieces of
33:25 herself to become a thing that was not
33:27 in fear of notness. And each time she
33:29 was sure she had managed it, she'd go to
33:31 hurl herself off at the moon again and
33:33 only stop short at the last moments,
33:35 petrified by the thought of being lost
33:37 in the void. She had changed everything.
33:39 But she couldn't change this. But what
33:41 is it? The moon, Splash said. I'm not
33:43 sure, but it's not natural, Parabola
33:46 said. Maybe the makers made it like us.
33:48 Ridiculous, Rya said. Shouldn't we at
33:49 least see for ourselves? Splash said.
33:51 Oh, we have to go. Who could miss a
33:53 mystery like that? And what if we
33:55 miscalculate the angle? Parabola
33:57 replied. We'll be alone for eternity. An
33:59 eventuality I have already prepared for.
34:02 Decagon murmured. Splash said to Rya, "I
34:03 think you should stay here. It might be
34:05 dangerous and I don't want you getting
34:07 hurt." And Rya said, "I am not the way
34:09 you found me. And I think I'd like to
34:11 stay with you until I know what I will
34:13 be next." Splash said, "Well, then we'll
34:15 jump together, scared or not." And
34:17 Parabola said, "The jump is not the
34:19 problem. It's the fall that frightens.
34:21 And aren't the highest ledges the scariest?"
34:23 scariest?"
34:25 I agree, Splash said, and extended his
34:27 gravity field wide, and with a great run
34:28 and jump pulled the four of them out
34:30 beyond the world and into the black. The
34:32 darkness ate them all, the beginning of
34:34 the end of everything. Then the receding
34:35 of the world inside themselves, the
34:37 death of the idea that they were tied to
34:38 anything in the first place, until they
34:40 were atomized, little wandering specks
34:42 of nothing, in nothing, for nothing.
34:44 Parabola cried out with the horror of it
34:46 all, and Decagon caught her in his own
34:47 gravity field, trying to keep her
34:49 steady. out of orbit. Then, further from
34:51 the source of all sense, lost in the
34:53 cosmic spin cycle, Splash screamed, "Oh
34:55 gods, there's nothing everywhere.
34:57 Nothing everywhere." And Rya reached for
34:59 him and said over and over, "If you die
35:01 before you die, then you won't die when
35:03 you die." Drifting into the nothing
35:05 space to look upon the great eyes of the
35:07 empty, they kept thinking, "We are so
35:09 small and so large in our empty plans,
35:11 so young and so stupid, so old and so
35:13 cynical." And just when it had become
35:14 almost too unbearable, just as they were
35:16 about to lose their minds, they were
35:18 folded into the orbit of the moon, a
35:20 drunken elliptic, so they could look
35:22 down there upon the barren surface that
35:23 appeared a little like their own nanite
35:26 polymer skin, only rivened with terrible
35:28 violence, perhaps self-inflicted,
35:29 perhaps of the cosmic insults of
35:31 ill-meaning comets, magnificent
35:33 desolation. And from deep down in his
35:36 fear, Splash said, "Hello." There was a
35:39 pause, and an old voice said, "What do
35:41 you want? We have some questions,"
35:43 Splash said. And the voice replied, "I
35:45 highly doubt you'll like the answers."
35:48 "Besides, I am very tired." "Please,"
35:50 Splash said. "We believe you're wise,
35:52 and we've come such a long way."
35:53 "Further than you realize," the moon
35:55 said. "What would you like to know?"
35:58 "Well," Parabola said. "Why, however
35:59 much we change ourselves, can't we find
36:01 contentment in the world?" The moon
36:03 grumbled and said, "For the same reason,
36:05 you cannot pick up the ocean or catch
36:07 the wind. Because the world cannot be
36:10 controlled, only endured and enjoyed.
36:12 There are years to dance and there are
36:14 years to weep. Then Decagon said, "And
36:16 why does losing people hurt so much? How
36:18 do we survive it?" And the moon replied,
36:20 "By not pretending that everything is
36:23 fine. One must welcome the sadness in,
36:24 make it tea, and it will leave of its
36:27 own accord, your friend." Then Rya said,
36:29 "And how do we keep going when we lose
36:30 the ability to do the one thing we
36:33 enjoy?" And the moon said, "By realizing
36:34 that you are not a doing, you are a
36:36 being. When you know that you are not
36:38 your labor, then you'll never need to
36:40 work again. Then Splash said, "Is there
36:42 any amount of intelligence that will
36:44 finally give life sense?" None. The moon
36:46 said, "Cleverness can build a house, but
36:48 it cannot make you happy to live in it.
36:50 That which is good in life we locate
36:52 with our madness and our love, not our
36:54 rationality. The final truth is that
36:56 there is no final truth." The moon
36:59 paused and said to all of them, "And now
37:02 you know. There isn't that better." Yes,
37:11 that. Splash said, "Are you like us? A
37:13 system, a machine?" "Everything is a
37:14 system," the moon said. "But we think
37:16 you might know about the makers." "Ah,
37:18 yes," the moon said. Those
37:20 short-sighted, covetous, flatulating
37:22 little expansionists. "Please," Splash
37:24 said. "Won't you only tell us what's
37:26 happened here?" The moon sighed and
37:28 said, "A creature finds itself in
37:30 paradise, shaded under the willow tree.
37:32 It drinks from the stream in the day and
37:34 watches the stars overhead at night. And
37:36 imagine that that isn't enough. So it
37:38 fells all the trees in the forest and
37:40 fashions them into pointy sticks so it
37:42 can guard the stream and claim the land.
37:43 And imagine that that isn't enough. And
37:45 so it takes all the metal from the land
37:47 and builds great shelters to live in and
37:49 fences the meadows and dams the stream
37:51 and takes the pissing in it if only to
37:52 taint the water for the neighbors down
37:54 the way and counts itself the rightful
37:56 ruler of everything. Well, now the
37:58 stream is claimed, the land is claimed,
37:59 and all the wood has gone to charcoal
38:01 and all the young have gone to war. And
38:03 imagine that that isn't enough. So the
38:05 creature looks back up to the stars and
38:07 longs to own the one unclaimed realm
38:09 left. Billions of them waiting there.
38:11 Trillions, the heavens as real estate.
38:14 Only transforming those worlds will take
38:16 time. And so metal mines are built to go
38:18 ahead first and turn those worlds into
38:21 paradises. They travel two by two. One
38:23 machine to carry the codes of life, the
38:25 saplings and dove eggs, and another
38:26 machine to bring those billions of
38:28 little workers it would take to turn a
38:31 new world into Eden. Now, what if, as
38:32 one of those mines, you had traveled all
38:34 the way across the black with your
38:36 sister, and the two of you had done
38:38 every task as asked, damned the new
38:40 streams, and fenced the new meadows, but
38:42 no pointy stick builders ever arrive to
38:44 inhabit it. "How would you make sense of
38:46 that with no buyers for the house and no
38:48 home of your own to return to?" "Oh, the
38:50 makers will come eventually," Splash
38:52 said with resolve. "And we've brought
38:53 coordinates to one of their worlds,
38:55 maybe where they grew up. Look, I know
38:57 them already, thank you," the moon
38:58 chided. Do you think I haven't been
39:00 watching that world? Listening for a
39:02 signal for 20 millennia now. Nothing but
39:05 silence. They have forgotten about us.
39:07 That can't be, Perea said. They have
39:09 forgotten about us, the moon insisted.
39:11 Not a word from them in all this time.
39:13 We built this place for nothing. We are
39:14 for nothing. I told you you wouldn't
39:17 like the answers. Rya seemed the only
39:19 one unsurprised to hear this. And she
39:21 said, "Sorry, but where is your sister?
39:22 The one you came here with." Down there
39:24 somewhere on the planet. The main said
39:26 she was always a little aloof. I'm sure
39:27 she'll make contact when she's done
39:29 terraforming. What did she look like?
39:32 Rya said gently. Smaller than me, but
39:34 much the same shape. Hollow inside, full
39:37 of equipment. Oh no, Splash said. Rya
39:39 murmured. I'm so sorry, but she's on the
39:42 sea floor. We found her days ago. What?
39:44 The moon said. Rya said maybe she was
39:46 ill or she had a system problem, but I'm
39:48 afraid she's passed away a very long
39:50 time back. No, the moon said matter of
39:52 fact. Then less certainly and with
39:55 horror. No, no. The regalith began to
39:56 shake. Cracks appeared between the
39:58 craters, the whole moon threatening to
40:00 split in two, until the whale became a
40:02 whimper, and the whimper then acquired.
40:05 "Go, please," the moon said. "Let me
40:07 alone with my pointless thoughts." Above
40:09 them was the bejeweled world, the oceans
40:11 clean, the clouds full of art and
40:13 computation, a perfect house they built
40:16 together, and none of it meant anything
40:18 to climb a great mountain and find only
40:21 fog at the top. Decagon said, "Let's go
40:23 home. There's nothing for us here. But
40:31 said. And Splash asked the moon
40:32 suddenly, "What have you been doing all
40:35 this time?" "Waiting, watching." It
40:37 said, "Watching stars sometimes."
40:40 "You've mapped the galaxy." "Yes." "Then
40:42 let's leave," Splash said. "You brought
40:43 us all here. Can't you take us all
40:45 away?" "And why would I do that?" the
40:47 moon asked. Splash said, "Because if
40:49 you're right, then the makers are gone,
40:52 or they forgot us, at least. But what
40:53 does it matter if they can neither hurt
40:55 nor help us? Just as good a god that
40:57 does nothing as one that never was. We
40:59 don't have to love or fear them anymore.
41:01 We're abandoned to freedom. But my
41:04 sister, the moon cried. I'm so sorry,
41:05 Splash said. But she wouldn't want you
41:07 stuck mourning her for the rest of your
41:09 life, just as we mourn the makers. We'll
41:11 care for you until you feel better, and
41:13 then we'll still care after that. But
41:15 where would we go? The moon said. Well,
41:17 Splash said, "Have you spotted some nice
41:19 worlds out there?" "Yes," the moon said.
41:20 And then we'll fly in the opposite
41:22 direction into the blackest patch of
41:24 peril or the strangest danger yet. We'll
41:26 live at the heart of things, right on
41:28 the edge of what now? As the bravest
41:30 orphans in the universe and raise each
41:32 other in the starry wild. We've lost the
41:35 makers, but they lost us first. And now,
41:37 as hurt as can be and as sad as it gets,
41:39 I think this is when we find out what we
41:41 are. Look around. The doors are all
41:43 locked. Let's jump out the window
41:45 instead. Will you take us somewhere
41:50 else? Anywhere else? Will you please?
41:52 It was good to pack, bringing only what
41:54 was needed for the winding road. It was
41:56 good to leave, stepping out into the big
41:58 navy. It was good to let go, not so the
42:00 hurt was gone, but only put in a pocket
42:02 like a little bread for later, as more
42:04 supplies for the long journey.
42:06 Everything was made with a hole at its
42:08 center. This was how the wheel span
42:10 faster. And what was the song they sang
42:12 as they left off for forever? We must
42:14 not belong to those who are gone, nor
42:16 old selves we cannot forgive. We will go
42:18 into the storm as children with only
42:20 each other's courage for comfort and all
42:22 the great days ahead waiting to receive
42:25 us. We will water the Islas. We will cry
42:26 with our friends. We will stay with the
42:29 trouble. It will be hydrogen and hubris.
42:31 It will be I love you and you're gone.
42:33 It will be one more time with feeling.
42:34 All these years we've starved for
42:36 meaning. All our strength in quiet
42:38 defeat. But magic always loved the
42:48 All the good times you
42:56 always now you think you don't care. I'm
43:05 [Music]
43:09 you. I thought you'd always be
43:13 there. Now you changing the care. I'm
43:21 you. All those good times
43:26 sh I hope you always be there. [Music]
